


The Dark God

by Athaia



Series: Planet of the Apes: Exiled [1]
Category: Planet of the Apes (TV)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Death Cult, Dragons, Gen, Lost Civilization, Mutants, Post-Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-08
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:08:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 67,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26890405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Athaia/pseuds/Athaia
Summary: On their quest for technology that could send them back to their own time, Virdon and Burke journey into  the Forbidden Zone - a post-apocalyptic wasteland that the apes don't dare to enter. The Zone is far from deserted, though, as the men discover when they are attacked by giant monitor lizards. But the 'sand dragons' aren't the only mutants hiding in the badlands...
Relationships: Alan Virdon & Pete Burke
Series: Planet of the Apes: Exiled [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1961881
Comments: 6
Kudos: 16





	1. Chapter 1

The hot breath of the Forbidden Zone’s desert wind threw tiny crystals of sand in Virdon’s eyes and forced him to squint up to the ape, who was rustling with his and Burke’s travel papers as if he could detect some hidden message between the cramped curves and whorls of Galen’s script. Virdon felt sweat pooling at the nape of his neck and trickling down his spine, and suspected that not all of it was from the pounding heat that made the air around them swirl in lazy currents.

Burke was unusually silent, a fact that added to Virdon’s concern. He cast a quick glance to the younger man at his side, but Burke’s face was blank; only his eyes were moving, flickering from one ape to the next, scanning the whole patrol, probably noting their position, alertness, and armament. 

Knowing Burke, he was already preparing for an attack, though Virdon couldn’t say whether for one from the apes, or for his own. Considering the major’s prior experiences with the simian overlords of their planet, both possibilities were equally likely.

Virdon felt another trickle of sweat running down his back.

“So you claim that you belong to a 'Doctor Kova',” the voice of the patrol leader took Virdon out of his worried musings. “And he allowed you to roam the far side of the mountains... to collect herbs?” The ape leaned back in the saddle and made a show of scanning the landscape, shadowing his eyes with his hand. 

Virdon involuntarily followed his gaze and admitted to himself that Galen’s excuse for their unsupervised traveling wasn’t holding up anymore out here. In the mangrove jungles of former Northern Florida, up through the endless swamps of Georgia, and finally, in the eternally fog-covered mountain slopes of the Appalachians, water had been in abundant supply, breeding mosquitos in the dense riparian forests, and feeding orchards, wheat and cotton fields wherever the apes’ human servants had managed to turn the wilderness into cultivated land.

But here, on the western flank of the mountain range, edging into the Forbidden Zone of the inner lands, water had vanished deep underground. The clouds emptied their load on the eastern side of the Iron Mountains, as the apes called them, and only appeared as hazy veils of mist in the mornings, before the sun drank them up at noon. In the past, these parts had been fertile and green; but whatever climate change had added to the apocalypse since then, had turned them into a wasteland.

Nothing grew here except some thorny, gray-leafed creepers. Virdon doubted that they had any healing properties. Much as he hated to admit it, the patrol leader had a point.

“Now, I don’t think you wrote those papers yourselves, seeing as humans are too dumb to read or write,” the chimp said; he rolled up the scroll and stuffed it into the cuff of his leather glove. “But maybe you thought you could use them to stray a bit farther from the path than your master intended you to go.”

It was a reasonable conclusion for an ape to make, but not one Virdon could afford to submit to; it would be completely at the apes’ discretion whether he and Burke would be sent back to their ‘master’, or sold as ownerless strays on the nearest simian marketplace. Not that it would stop them from continuing their mission, but Virdon wasn’t willing to tolerate any more delays. Not now, when they had finally outrun Urko and could focus on their actual objective — finding a pocket of civilization that would enable them to send a signal back home, back through time.

“We may have gotten lost,  _ vetes,”  _ he said, carefully keeping his voice respectful, his body relaxed and slightly hunched, making himself smaller in front of the ape. Most apes couldn’t manage the completely erect stance of a human, and towering over an ape was considered a provocation, even if said ape was sitting on a horse and thus being taller than the human by default. Much as it grated on him to still be cowering before the apes, this was not the time to put pride before prudence.

“Maybe they stole those papers, hmm?” 

From the corner of his eye, Virdon saw Burke turn around to face the new speaker. The rest of the patrol had surrounded them by now, and the chimp’s face was hidden in the glare of the sun. But Virdon could picture his expression from the sound of his voice: a taunting sneer, a glint of violence in beady eyes that said,  _ You’re all alone out here, no master around to protect his property, so why don’t we have a little fun, hmm? _

“How would that have been possible,  _ vetes?”  _ Virdon addressed the patrol leader with more calm than he was feeling. “A human stealing from an ape? We would’ve been caught and punished immediately.”

The chimp scowled, and Virdon realized that his question had put the ape in a quandary; he could either agree with him that those papers couldn’t have been stolen, or admit that an ape could be tricked by a human, and thus be not as superior as they liked to think of themselves. Either way, he’d made a mockery of the simian race; not the best way to defuse this situation, Virdon thought contritely.

The ape scratched his cheek. “You know, Gitas, I think you’re right. I think we found ourselves some strays... and everyone knows that strays steal like rats.”

They had just been reduced from someone’s valuable property to unprotected game. Nobody would sue for compensation when strays were hurt or killed...  


At the edge of Virdon’s vision, Burke shifted on his feet.

“But that one has a brand,” a third voice somewhere to Virdon’s right pointed out. 

The patrol leaned forward in his saddle and squinted at the pattern of scars at his neck, a souvenir from their recent stay in Chubla, the capital of the Northern District, where Virdon had decided to lose his mind for a time.

“Nah,” the ape said after a moment of thoughtful scrutinity, “it’s been erased. That one belongs to nobody, and the other one hasn’t a brand at all. We’ll be fine.” He straightened in the saddle and reached for his gun. 

“The light-colored one is lame,” one of the apes - Gitas? - muttered. “No sport.”

The first ape shrugged and checked his gun. “We can let him walk away and take shots from a distance - see how good y’all are at taking aim. Don’t look a gift human in the mouth.”

“Our papers  _ are _ valid,” Virdon insisted, though without much hope that his argument would turn the situation around. “You’re trespassing on another ape’s... rights.”

Property. The apes were trespassing on Galen’s  _ property,  _ but Virdon couldn’t bring himself to say it aloud. There had been a time when he had deferred to Galen’s pretend ownership more readily, at least in public; it had been the smart thing to do, with Urko on their tail, and with the overriding necessity to blend in.

But since they had left the last vestiges of simian civilization behind them in the westernmost valleys of the Iron Mountains, Virdon had found himself breathing more freely, walking with his head held high again, and feeling more like his old self than he had for over a year. They were on their own now, he and Burke, on the mission they had decided on shortly after they had crashlanded in this nightmarish version of their former home, and he couldn’t find the patience in himself anymore to tolerate the apes’ assumptions of superiority. 

Right now, though, that superiority was bolstered with weapons and horses; he and Burke were outnumbered and outgunned, and there was no way he could reach for his own handgun now — and even if he could, it wouldn’t change anything, except get them killed more quickly.

At a nod from the ape, Virdon obediently shucked off his backpack; beside him, Burke was doing the same. Leather creaked as the other members of the patrol shifted in their saddles, eager for a little entertainment before lunch. Virdon let the straps slide from his shoulders, frantically searching for some proposition that would be more appealing to the apes and less deadly for him and Burke—

A shot cracked, close enough to make Virdon’s ears ring, and the patrol leader was flung from his horse; another shot, and the ape to his left dropped to the ground before anyone could even shout out in surprise.

Burke! How...?

With a curse, Virdon fell to his knees and reached for his own handgun. Whatever plan he might’ve come up with, something that wouldn’t get them killed or send every patrol of the borderlands after them, Burke’s unauthorized initiative had rendered it moot.

Then the window of surprise closed with a snap, and suddenly every ape was shouting and reaching for their gun. The horses, apparently not used to being in a gun fight that happened right under their hooves, were dancing and rearing, making it difficult for their riders to take aim, but also turning them into moving targets. Dust whirled up and mixed with gunsmoke, and for a moment, everything was ear-splitting, sun-clouded chaos. Burke was firing at someone behind Virdon’s back, as Virdon fired into the wavering veil of dust to his right. One of the apes jerked his horse around and spurred it into a gallop, but a bullet - his? Burke’s? Virdon couldn’t say - took him out of the saddle immediately.

And just as suddenly, silence returned, only punctuated by the sound of hoofbeats as the riderless horses made off into the mountains, back to their stables. Virdon coughed and spit out a mouthful of dust, then straightened with a sigh to survey the situation.

One horse whose reins had tangled around its legs slowly stumbling after its panicked comrades. Six apes laying dead at their feet, a  _ whole patrol  _ mowed down in the gunfight. 

The patrol leader was still gripping his gun. Burke moved towards it, but Virdon grabbed his arm and spun him around before he could make more than a single step. “What the  _ hell  _ was that, Major? Are you out of your mind?”

Burke’s face reddend. “I acted in self-defense,  _ Sir!  _ They were gonna use us for target practice! _ ” _

Virdon wasn’t in the mood to be mollified by Burke’s sudden return to protocol. “The whole  _ district  _ will be after us now! You can’t go on a rampage every time we encounter an ape!”

“Did you listen to me?” Burke flung out his arm towards the dead apes sprawled all around them. “They were gonna kill us! They didn’t give a fuck about Galen’s papers!”

“I was about to handle that!” Virdon heard his voice rise and tried to lower it. They couldn’t both lose control now. “I  _ will _ handle these encounters in the future, and you won’t even  _ think _ of assuming the initiative, or so help me...“

He broke off, and for a moment, they just stared at each other, the air thick with unspoken words.

_ Or what? I’m going to call a court-martial on him? Out here, in the desert, on the planet of the apes?  _

“As long as we’re here,” Virdon said, forcing himself to make his words come out slowly, evenly...  _ calmly, _ “as long as we’re here, we need to play by the rules —  _ their _ rules, even if we don’t like them. Even if they’re cruel and demeaning. There are more important things at stake than your pride... or my pride. It’s our duty to stay alive long enough to complete the mission.”

He saw Burke’s shoulders rise and fall as the other man took a deep breath, but Burke kept silent. Even his face betrayed nothing. There was no way of knowing whether Virdon had gotten through to him.

_ Do you still trust me, Pete? _

Suddenly Burke stepped back and averted his gaze. “You’re the colonel, Colonel. Sorry for overstepping my bounds. Guess the monkeys jus’ pushed my buttons.”

Virdon sighed, feeling utterly exhausted. This was not the reaction he had hoped for. “Well, I guess what’s done’s done. Their comrades may not immediately suspect humans - we usually don’t carry firearms.”

“Keep ‘em barefoot an’ helpless, yeah,” Burke muttered. “Serves ‘em right if their philosophy bit them in the ass this time.” He gestured at the dead patrol leader. “I’d still take their weapons and ammo; guess they’ll come in handy sooner or later, an’ we can’t exactly buy replacements.”

“We can’t hide these rifles like we can hide our handguns,” Virdon warned him. 

Burke shrugged. “Don’t know about you, Al,” he said, and bent down to pick up the gun, “but I wouldn’t let them come close enough anymore to check.”

“We need to stick to the edge of the mountains on our way up north,” Virdon pointed out. “We can’t keep a sufficient distance if we cross paths with another patrol.” Right now, he didn’t want to test the authority of his rank on Burke — their truce was fragile, despite Burke’s acknowledgment that he was still his superior officer. If he could convince him of his reasoning, Burke’s cooperation would be more dependable.

“And what if the next patrol decides they wanna use us for target practice, too?” Burke was stripping the apes of their ammunition belts. “We could travel by night — we’d hear their horses and see their torches long before they’d spot us. And it wouldn’t be so damn hot, either.”

“And we’d break our necks when we fall into a ravine that we didn’t see because we can’t use torches to light our way if we want to keep that advantage,” Virdon said dryly. But he didn’t make a move to keep Burke from collecting the rest of the ammunition belts. 

Truth be told, he had no better plan to offer. As this encounter had proven, Galen’s papers didn’t guarantee safe passage any longer. In a world where humans had no legal rights, the only law respected by all was the law of superior force. 

When Burke offered him one of the looted guns, Virdon hesitated only for a second before accepting it.

* * *

“Ouch!  _ Fuck!”  _

“You’re giving up our advantage if you keep shouting like that,” Virdon’s voice drifted out of the darkness.

Burke fleetingly contemplated throwing the stone that had assaulted his big toe in Virdon’s direction, but chances were too high that he’d hit the colonel’s head in the utter darkness, and much as the man deserved to share the pain for his schadenfreude, they couldn’t afford to be held up by a concussion.

“Okay, it was a bad idea,” he huffed. “There, I admitted it, you were right, traveling by night was a bad idea.” Saying it pained Burke almost as much as his throbbing toe — their shoes were more like moccasins, not sturdy hiking boots — but a man had to choose his battles. Right now he preferred another shootout with the damn monkeys to stubbing his toe in the darkness  _ yet again. _

They hadn’t stopped at sunset to set up their tent this time, but walked on into the rapidly falling darkness, and by now, Burke thoroughly regretted his suggestion to travel under the cover of night to avoid another fuckup with a patrol. The terrain was rougher than he had noticed during the day, the ground treacherous with slippery gravel and the occasional bigger rocks that seemed to have been spread strategically so that he was guaranteed to smash his toes into them.

And it was cold. Really damn cold, and even crawling over and around the damn rocks wasn’t enough to keep him warm. If there had been some moonlight, Burke was sure he’d been able to see his breath clouding in the freezing air.

“Killing off an entire patrol was the worse idea,” Virdon rumbled. “So I’m afraid we’re stuck with your bad idea for now, Pete. I don’t want to risk the next patrol strip-searching us. Even if you hadn’t looted their guns and ammunition belts, they’d find our handguns.”

“We’d still hear them before they’d see us,” Burke objected. ”We could hide and let them pass. Did it often enough before Galen upgraded to that doctor’s wagon.”

“We’re already at the edge of the desert — there’s not enough vegetation left, you can see anything that moves for miles.” 

They were at the edge of the desert alright — it explained why the temperatures fell so rapidly once the sun was beneath the horizon. Burke flexed his numb fingers and cupped his hands around his mouth to blow some warmth into them. He racked his brain for something that would persuade Virdon to call off this damn disciplinary night hike, but came up empty. 

He was fucked. The only thing he could do now was to tread very cautiously to protect his toes.

And yeah, probably tread cautiously in the other sense, too.

They walked on in silence for a while — maybe an hour, though Burke wasn’t sure if his time sense got screwed up by boredom. Finally, he couldn’t bear it any longer.

“Al?” He made sure to keep his voice low this time. “Al, we fucked up big time back there.”

_ “We?”  _

“Yeah. We forgot to take back Galen’s papers from the big guy.” The realization had popped into his head out of nowhere while he had been navigating the toe-crushers. The adrenalin spike that had followed this realization had made him forget about the cold for a while.

“Guess you were too mad at me for shooting up the monkeys to remember,” he continued when Virdon still hadn’t said anything. “An’ I... well, guess I was too busy calculating how many more of them I could kill with the ammo I took from the dead ones. In any case, whoever finds the bodies will know that it was two humans who did them in. So I guess you’re right, an’ we really have no choice but to-” 

Something grabbed Burke’s shirt and slammed him so hard against a rock that the air left his lungs with a cough. Virdon’s breath was hot in his face. “You reckless, insubordinate  _ idiot!  _ You’ll get us both killed before we’ll have any chance to warn ANSA!”

Sucking in breath was painful, but Burke was too enraged to care. “Warn ANSA? ANSA is  _ gone,  _ civilization is  _ gone,  _ when will that fact finally penetrate your thick skull?”

Virdon pulled him away from the rock only to smash him against it again, a single shake that pushed what little air he’d been able to inhale right out of his lungs again. “Nothing of this has to  _ happen!”  _ The words sounded slightly choked, as if Virdon was speaking through clenched teeth. “If we send the flight data, tell them what happened here, they can  _ do _ something about it! It’s our  _ duty _ to warn them!” He suddenly let go, but continued to tower over him; Burke could feel the heat radiating from his body. 

“Al, there’s just nothing left of... of _anything,”_ he wheezed when he could breathe again. “The tech you’d need to send that signal is a thousand years overdue for maintenance! Where do you think they’d get their spare parts in the meantime? Generators, cables, circuit boards, tiny cute LED lamps? Do you really think you’d just have to dust off some ancient computer and we’re a go?”

“You agreed to come with me,” Virdon snapped. “Why did you join me if you think it’s all for nothing?”

“To keep you out of trouble...”

“Why thank you for your efforts, Pete. You really outdid yourself with that patrol.”

“They’d have shot us if I hadn’t fired first,” Burke said indignantly. “You know it, I know it, stop giving me shit about it.”

A long silence followed, and this time, Burke was unwilling to break it. There was a slim chance that Virdon would finally see sense and break off this insane mission of his, and Burke didn’t want to chase off that insight while it was battling its way into the colonel’s stubborn head. 

“If they...  _ since _ they know now that two humans wiped out their patrol, they won’t leave a single stone unturned until they’ve found us,” Virdon finally said. “That means staying on our original route has become too risky, even if we travel by night.”

The damn monkeys would probably come crashing through their tent at noon. Burke stuck his hands under his armpits before his fingers fell off from the cold. “So what do you suggest?”

“We need to retreat deeper into the desert for a while — travel north on a parallel route, until we’re out of the district at least. From the maps I've seen, the badlands proper begin on the far side of the Tennessee river. We can make it that far if we ration our water supply. We turn north again there, follow the river.”

Burke glanced at the dark and silent expanse to the west — a pretty useless gesture, since the weak starlight didn’t really illuminate any features of the landscape, but he didn’t need to see it to know that they were in for a hellish ride. **  
**

“Sounds like a plan,” he said at last. “Let’s go.”

Virdon set off without another word, and for a while, Burke let him brood in peace. It was only when he could see Virdon’s silhouette in the blue light of dawn that he broke the silence. “Al? Do you think Galen will get in trouble for this? I mean, his name is on these papers...”

Virdon didn’t turn around. “Galen has gotten pretty good at improvising,” he muttered after a while. “He’s become the ape of a thousand disguises... I’m sure he’ll talk his way out of this, too. As long as they can’t prove that the humans who assaulted their comrades are the same humans that he, uh, owned, he’ll dispute any of their claims. We could’ve stolen those papers, after all.”

It sounded like a lot of hoping for the best, and for the first time, Burke felt bad about the gunfight. Even if Galen had devolved into an ass after Zana had lost her child...  _ because it was our fault, can I really be mad at him for blaming us?...  _ he didn’t deserve to get into trouble for something that had happened miles and miles away from his home, without any chance for him to influence the outcome.

And Zana. Girl deserved it even less.

“Yeah, guess the best we can do now is to make sure those goons can’t use us as exhibits A and B to make their case against Dr. Kova,” he said at last. “Think we could go even deeper into the zone, Al?”

* * *

Virdon was pretty sure that the grainy feeling under his eyelids was from actual sand, and not just from exhaustion. Ever since they had reached the foot of the mountains, a weak but steady wind had tugged at their clothes and sucked the sweat from their faces, and now, as they had wandered farther out into the wide, flat valley between the mountains and the western plateau, that same wind gnawed off the bare sandstone and threw its tiny crystals into their faces.

He reached up without opening his eyes, and rubbed his hand across his sweaty neck. Sure enough, sand was sticking to his skin there, too. It shouldn’t have been possible - they were both wearing scarves under their wide-brimmed hats, draped loosely over their shoulders to protect them from sunburn - but the stuff somehow found its way into every crevice, and under all layers of clothing, until it finally reached skin that it could begin to rub raw.

He could feel Burke shift beside him. “Why you awake?” his friend muttered. “Oughtta sleep while you can.”

“’s too hot,” Virdon mumbled. “See anything out there?”

“Nothing. The monkeys can’t sweat like us, they’d fall off their horses if they tried to follow us in this heat.” Virdon felt Burke shift around some more, and when he spoke again, his voice sounded closer, as if he was facing him. “If we travel the desert by day, we could shake them off in no time.”

Virdon sighed and rubbed his face, which was just as sweaty and sandy as his neck, and forced his eyes to open. Sure enough, Burke was staring down at him, propped up on one elbow instead of scanning the rocky plain outside their tent.

“Yes, we can sweat better, but that means we’ll dehydrate more quickly,” he said. “And as long as we don’t find water, we need to conserve what we have as best as we can. Which means we’ll continue to travel by night, when it’s cooler. Besides, as you told me yourself, the darkness makes for better cover, too.” He sat up, feeling hot and dizzy. The tent shielded them from the rays of the sun, but it couldn’t do anything about the heat trapped underneath it.

Burke shrugged and returned to his former position, flat on his belly. “You’re the boss, Colonel.” He scanned the barren landscape as if he really expected an ape patrol to appear on the horizon. “Binos would be nice,” he muttered, more to himself. “That orang had a telescope, Zana said. Should’ve nabbed it while I was there.”

Virdon made a noncommittal sound and crawled outside to dig out their water flasks. Burying them in the ground on the northern side of their tent did keep the water somewhat cooler, or at least he liked to tell himself that it did. He took a swig of the tepid liquid and swished it around in his mouth before he swallowed it.

The sun was already hanging low on the horizon, but the air over the stones was still shimmering with heat. Hard to believe that this had once been a green and forested area. Sometimes Virdon wished they had really crashed on an alien... on an extrasolar planet. It would’ve been easier to deal with all the strangeness if he didn’t have to fight the constant feeling that what he saw around him wasn’t  _ supposed _ to be like that.

There was no point in brooding over things he couldn’t change. Virdon swept his gaze over the soft dips and crests of the valley floor, trying to determine their course for the night. 

He didn’t have a detailed memory of the geographical features of the continent, and the maps of the apes were mostly blank where “forbidden zones” cropped up - so for most of the inland - but of course he knew the major landmarks, and had made his plans accordingly. Since by all accounts the southern half of the former United States was a dehydrated, white-hot hell, Virdon had planned to travel up north along the western side of the Appalachian mountains until they reached the Great Lakes, and then to turn westward, until they arrived at... he still wasn’t sure that the White City of human legend was situated somewhere in the Rockies, as Burke claimed. From Laisa’s tale, it could as well be even further to the west, at the pacific coast. In that case, he’d use up his one year that he had promised to Burke searching the wrong mountain range.

Maybe they  _ would _ part ways there. Though he tried to ignore Burke’s increased references to their respective ranks — something that had somehow never cropped up between them since their initial capture by Urko — Virdon was aware of the younger man’s changed attitude towards him. Burke’s latest blowup after their encounter with the patrol was only a fitting piece of the pattern that had developed after Chubla.

With a sigh, Virdon took another sip from the water bottle, then recorked it and got to his feet. Time to break camp — if they could make a good distance tonight, and the nights after this one, they might cross the Tennessee river farther up north, and follow it upstream back towards the Appalachians, into a prefecture that didn’t have their wanted posters glued to every tree along the road.

“I just saw movement over there,” Burke greeted him when Virdon returned to the entrance of the tent to hand him his canteen. “Could be a patrol...”

Virdon straightened and squinted at the eastern horizon. After a moment, he saw it, too — bobbing movement, as if horses were going at a trot, and the cloud of dust the hooves were whirling up. 

“You’re right,” he said, silently cursing himself again for having left their papers with the dead patrol. He was really losing his edge... had lost it since before Chubla... “We need to retreat still farther into the desert. Let’s hope the horrors of the Forbidden Zone will scare them off our scent.”

They quickly took down the tent, working in silence, and set out for their nightly trek in silence, too. There wasn’t much to talk about, and their voices would carry far in the desert, betraying their position. The moon was only a thin slice of light in the sky, barely enough to find their way without stumbling over rocks on the ground; but they didn’t dare to light torches, which would’ve given away their position, too. The apes’ night vision wasn’t any better than that of a human, so maybe he and Burke would be able to slip away under the cover of night.

Virdon allowed himself the cautious hope that they would be lucky this time.

They walked at a steady pace, quick enough to put some distance between them and the patrol, slow enough not to break too much of a sweat, and only stopped around midnight for a short rest and a  swig from their water flasks. They didn’t touch their field rations; all of their food was dried, and would require too much water to either soak it, or digest it. 

“Think they’re still after us?” Burke murmured. “I didn’t hear anything for a while now.”

They both strained their ears, but except for the wind, nothing-

“You heard that?” Burke whispered.

“Yes,” Virdon breathed. “But that’s no hoofbeat.”

The sound returned, a swishing, scratching noise, as if from claws digging into the stone. At first, it had come from behind them, but now it seemed to be on their left, and before them.

Virdon reached for the torch sticking out from Burke’s backpack. “Give me the flint and steel.”

Burke quickly crouched down and struck a spark into the wick. Virdon rose and swung the torch over his head in a wide arc, feeding the wind to it, and the flame hissed up, throwing a golden glow onto the rocky ground, a glow that was returned as green shards of light from a dozen eyes.

“What the  _ actual  _ fuck!” Virdon heard the hard ratcheting sound as Burke yanked at the lever of his gun. “Here there really be dragons, Al!”

They were surrounded by what looked like monitor lizards — only these here were even bigger than Komodo dragons. For a dizzying moment, Virdon wondered if they could’ve strayed too far back to the east while running from the patrol — these animals couldn’t survive out in the desert, where no prey lived that were big enough to sustain them. 

Well, except for him and Burke.

“They must’ve been following us for a while,” he said, swinging the torch in a circle to get a better overview of the situation, and to keep the lizards at a distance. They were probably the reason that the patrol had so easily given up on following him and Burke. 

“Probably thought we’d make a nice midnight snack _WHOA!” _

One of the creatures suddenly leaped into the firelight, straight at Burke, who had been about to raise the gun to his shoulder. Burke threw himself to one side, firing blindly at the attacking reptile, but the bullet either missed, or just grazed the beast, because it landed with a hiss at the spot where Burke had been a moment before, and pivoted on its hindlegs to prepare for the next strike. It had a long tail that it used to balance itself, like a cat.

Virdon didn’t have any more time to contemplate the beast’s anatomy; as if that first attack had been a signal to the others, the rest of the pack was jumping into the fray now, too, hissing at him and Burke. He hit one of them on the snout with his torch and batted at scaly heads left and right while he nestled for his gun with his other hand. 

Shots echoed around him, as Burke frantically emptied the magazine of his captured rifle. One of his bullets finally hit home and felled one of the creatures, and its agonized screams alerted the others that here was a free meal. To the cacophony of screams and ripping flesh, both men made a hasty retreat.

“Fucking  _ dragons!”  _ Burke gasped. Then, “Damn lizards cost me a whole magazin, an’ I only hit  _ one!  _ Good thing we raided that patrol.”

Virdon refrained from pointing out that if they hadn’t raided that patrol, they wouldn’t be stumbling through the desert now, trying to avoid reptiles the size of a small car. 

If they were reptiles at all — reptiles wouldn’t have been able to hunt at night, not at the low night temperatures of the desert. They had to be warm-blooded, like birds. Virdon remembered the strange dinosaur-like birds they had seen at the outskirts of that cursed ruined city. Genetic manipulation, most likely — maybe someone had tried to reverse the evolutionary process that had given speech and intelligence to the apes? If you reversed evolution in birds, you arrived back at... dinosaurs.

Maybe Burke was right, and those beasts  _ were _ dragons.

“Anyway, we waved torches around, an’ fired a whole battery at those freaks,” Burke muttered. “Only a blind an’ deaf monkey wouldn’t find us now.”

“We stay on our current route,” Virdon decided. “Those beasts will be busy with their comrade for a while, and then too full to take up pursuit. There’s a good chance we can shake them off, and the apes may not be following us at all — they can’t be ignorant of the existence of these... these ‘desert dragons’. They might think we’ve got eaten.”

He heard Burke snort in the darkness. “You mean, we might get lucky for once?”

Virdon didn’t dare to answer.


	2. Chapter 2

The rest of the night was uneventful if one didn’t count stumbling over rocks and constantly looking over one’s shoulder as events. Neither monkeys nor dragons showed up, in any case, but Burke wasn’t ready to believe that they had really gotten off easy this time. That just didn’t fit the pattern of their safari on this damn planet so far.

Shortly before sunrise, they made camp on a north-facing slope that would give them a bit of shelter from the sun for a few hours; Virdon had chosen a spot in the shade of some big boulders, although the rocky ground between them made digging into cooler layers of sand impossible. 

Burke was secretly grateful for that. Camping had never really been his thing, and that encounter with the mutated... (had to be mutated, no lizard back home was that big unless it was a croc) ... with the ‘sand dragons’, as Virdon called them, had left him tense. Although digging into the ground cooled the tent down somewhat, keeping an eye out for the critters had priority for him now. 

As it turned out, Virdon did most of the work himself after flicking him a single glance. Burke had no idea if it meant that the colonel approved of his vigilance, or if he just didn’t bother to engage him anymore, but he felt too exhausted to ask. He sat down to sort and count their remaining arsenal, and to clean the sand out of their guns while he had the opportunity, scanning the slopes around them for suspicious movement every few seconds.

But maybe he was too tired, or too dehydrated, or just too fucking distracted by his task, but suddenly there was a yell and a crash behind him, and when Burke whirled around, Virdon was hurling a rock at one of the damn dragons and half a dozen heads were suddenly rising like ghosts from the background ambers and ochres.

Where had they come from? Did the damn monsters camouflage themselves like chamaeleons? Burke chambered a round, thanked a god he didn’t believe in that he hadn’t emptied the magazine of this one, too, and fired point-blank at the reptile cornering Virdon. 

This time, the others ignored their free meal for some reason; maybe they had learned from their last encounter... a scary thought. Burke reloaded and fired again, but missed - for their size, the things were crazy fast and agile. 

And then he didn’t get any opportunity for firing his gun anymore, because the lizards were too close, too fast, and he was worried he’d hit Al instead of a mutant.

Burke reached behind himself and unsheathed his ANSA knife. 

Time to bring a bit of old-time civilization to this world.

He ducked sideways to evade the snapping teeth of his attacker and stabbed upwards to pierce its throat, but the sand dragon had already turned its head, and he was stabbing into empty air. It hadn’t been a conscious evasive maneuver, Burke saw after a moment; the dragons snapped at them and pulled away with an identical, screwing motion - trying to grab a chunk of flesh and rip it out. If any of them managed to take a bite out of him or Virdon, they were done for. This was nothing you could sew together again. The realization made him break out in cold sweat, and he forced himself to stop thinking...

... start dancing with those devils instead.

_ Sand and sun and sweat and stab, duck, retreat, balance, strike out, retreat, evade.  _

_ Breath rasping in his ears, the feel of rock and gravel through the soles of his boots. Teeth, the flapping of the tarp, shadows flickering, the sun piercing the horizon behind him, flooding the slope with sudden light.  _

_ Stab.  _

_ Their hide is thick and scaly and tough, blunting his knife. Stab for the eyes, the throat. The papery skin underneath the jaw.  _

_ Teeth. Retreat.  _

_ Balance on the balls of your feet. Lunge, stab, evade, move. _

_ Move, move, move. _

_ Teeth snap shut inches from his face, the head retracts in the same screwing motion, always the same motion, and by now, he knows without words, without thinking, where the throat will be, the papery skin on the underside- _

_ Stab. Slice. Jump back as the body crashes to the ground. _

_ There is no time at all, even though the light changes, the angle of the shadows on the ground changes. He’s drenched with sweat, the handle of his knife slippery in his palms.  _

_ Lunge, stab, evade.  _

_ These things don’t seem to tire out. He can’t think of the other fighter, he hears him, sometimes sees him from the corner of his eyes, but his attention is always on the reptiles, two of them, trying to encircle him, snapping at his legs, his arms. _

_ One almost succeeds, but the teeth only scrape away a bit of skin. He reverses the grip on his knive, stabs downward, backwards, and plunges the blade into the beast’s eye socket. _

A sharp crack jolted him out of his trance. Virdon had shot the last remaining dragon. Burke stared at him, feeling a bit dizzy from the heat and the loss of water that he had spent as sweat during the fight, trying to return his brain to verbal mode. 

“Well,” Virdon croaked at last. “That should take care of any further pursuit. I think we got them all this time.”

Burke sniffed and wiped his hand over his face before he turned to survey their camp ground. Five bodies, three of them with bullet wounds. “I counted seven when they attacked... two got away.” 

“I don’t know why you thought you had to go mano-a-mano with them,” Virdon continued, ignoring the bad news. “That was too risky, Pete. You should’ve shot them, like I did. That you got two of them with that knife was impressive, yes, but...” He frowned. “Seems they did get you, too. Let me see your arm.”

“’s just a scratch,” Burke muttered, feeling suddenly embarrassed. He hadn’t even heard the other shots, he had been so... so out of it. 

_ What’s wrong with me? _

_ Nothing’s wrong, nothing, they were too close to Al, I didn’t have a clean shot, I had to... _

“Doesn’t matter.” Virdon had grabbed his arm and was inspecting the wound. “It can still get infected, and we don’t know if their saliva is poisonous.”

“Oh, great.” Burke tried to pull his arm away without success. “Whatcha gonna do, suck it out?”

Virdon flicked him an unreadable glance. “It’s not a puncture wound. You were lucky.”

Burke just snorted at that.  _ Better stop believing in luck, bud. _

Virdon let go of his arm. “It’s bleeding nicely. We’ll let the wound clean itself for a bit, and bandage it later. I’ll see if Galen packed a tincture for poisonous bite wounds for us.” He turned away, hesitated, then turned back again. “And I’ll take first watch. Get some rest, Pete.”

“Told you I’m fine!” Burke protested, but sat down nonetheless. The dizziness hadn’t gone away; maybe he should really rest for a bit. And drink something.

He leaned back against a rock - after checking for snakes and scorpions and other, probably mutated, shit - and watched Virdon drag the lizards down the slope, away from their tent. He absently wondered if they were edible... didn’t people eat snakes and lizards out in the bush? 

But his eyes drooped shut, and he was asleep before he could ask Virdon about it.

* * *

There were no more attacks that day, but when they broke camp, Virdon thought he saw the two surviving ‘dragons’ crouching between some rocks in the distance. His suspicion proved correct when he spotted movement following his and Burke’s trail. The beasts kept their distance, but they doggedly followed them through the night, apparently never losing their scent.

Virdon hoped that their previous encounters with his gun and Burke’s knife was the reason for their new caution; he didn’t want to dwell on the other option. It was too dark to keep an eye on how Burke was doing, and they hadn’t talked the nights before, either, for fear of giving their position away, and so it was impossible to judge if his friend’s silence was caused by any discomfort from his wound. But Virdon thought that Burke’s step was not as light as before anymore, and that his breathing was a bit more labored.

Or maybe his fears were making his imagination run wild. He had carefully cleaned the wound after he had dragged the dead reptiles downhill, had doused it with Galen’s tincture until Burke had slapped his hand away, and had let him sleep through the rest of the day, only waking him now and then to make sure that he drank enough water. He had also insisted that Burke ate one of the dried-fruit-and-nut-bars, at which point Burke had begun to call him ‘Dad’ and told him to go the fuck away.

Burke was keeping pace with him. He was worrying about nothing. 

The dragons - Virdon had resigned himself to call them that, since they were obviously not cold-blooded reptiles - attacked again in the morning when he was about to set up camp. It was only a short burst of attack, jumping them from behind, and the beasts retreated behind the crest of a hill when Virdon fired at them, but they continued to sneak around the camp afterwards, striking out whenever the men’s attention started to lag. They had obviously learned what guns were, because they jumped for cover every time Virdon raised the weapon to his shoulder. He didn’t manage to hit either of them.

“Stop wasting ammo,” Burke muttered. “Need to let ‘em come closer’n that.”

“I won’t let them come close enough to bite one of us again,” Virdon said, and took a deep draw from his water bottle. It was getting lighter — too light for where they were on the map right now — but he still had that other canteen. Almost all of the items in their backpacks were water canisters. No need to worry about their water supply yet.

“How are you holding up?” Virdon asked, when Burke didn’t answer. He had expected an argument — it was Burke’s normal mode of conversation. When he turned his head to look at his friend, Burke seemed to be a bit paler than usual.

“Fine,” Burke murmured. “Thirsty. The usual. ‘m trying to sleep a bit now.”

“You do that,” Virdon murmured back, trying not to sound concerned. He handed Burke his water bottle and returned his gaze to the sun-drenched dust field outside the tent’s entrance. A scaly head was peeking around a boulder, and he hurled a fist-sized rock at it.

He let Burke sleep throughout the day. He counted their remaining bullets, cleaned the rifles, sharpened Burke’s knife, and brooded over his map. The long, sweltering hours were only punctuated by throwing rocks at the dragons when they came too close to the tent, but even they vanished around noon, probably seeking shelter in the shadow of some boulder.

When the sun was finally climbing down from the sky, Virdon decided to break camp early; the sooner they reached the Tennessee river, the sooner he could take Burke to a doctor - even an ape veterinarian would be fine. He’d worry about a credible story later. For now, they had to get out of the desert, and away from its scaly predators.

Burke was slow to wake up, and seemed to be disoriented at first. Virdon encouraged him to drink some more water, and unwrapped the bandage around his arm to take a look at the wound.

The edges of the torn skin were red and swollen. Burke didn’t flinch when Virdon gently dug his fingertips into his arm to determine the extent of the swelling, but that didn’t mean anything. At least there was no discharge from the wound; it seemed to be inflamed, but not infected. 

Burke didn’t look at the wound, or asked about it, and Virdon didn’t comment, just poured some more of Galen’s tincture on it and wrapped a fresh bandage around the arm. His friend’s silence and drowsiness were bad signs, but there was nothing he could do about it now, except get them both to safety as quickly as possible. He dragged Burke to his feet. “Let’s get moving.”

They were slower that night; there was no point in denying it any longer. Burke felt hot to the touch even in the dead of night, but complained about having the chills; and when Virdon checked his wound at sunrise, its margins had a blueish tint, and the wound itself was oozing pus. 

Around them, the dried out valley stretched uniformly in all directions. The wind howled around the naked rocks that had been covered by trees and grass a thousand years ago, and somewhere among those rocks, two saurians were ambling after them, instinct telling them that they no longer needed to hurry as the poisonous bite of their dead comrade was slowly but surely taking down their prey.

Virdon sat down cross-legged at the entrance of the tent, his rifle right beside him, and pulled out his map.

* * *

Burke was already awake when Virdon gently shook him by the shoulder, but he was too drowsy to tell him to stop. All he could manage was a hoarse mumble; his throat was dry and itchy, and his attempt to tell Virdon to leave him the fuck alone just made the itching worse. Burke rolled away from him and tried to stifle his cough.

“Here, drink something.”

Burke accepted the water bottle with a nod. The water was warm and tasted funny, but it was liquid, and soothing, and he was too thirsty to care. When he sat up, a wave of dizziness engulfed his head, as if an invisible squid was sucking at his scalp. Burke reached up to scratch his head to chase the strange sensation away, and stopped abruptly.

His right arm felt bad. Really bad, swollen... as if it was about to burst any moment. And it hurt, a deep, dull ache inside his bicep. Burke carefully closed his right hand around the water bottle to hide the sudden stop of movement, and proceeded to rub his scalp with his left hand.

“How’s the arm, Pete?” 

He couldn’t see Virdon’s expression — closing your eyes made the dizziness a bit more bearable — but he could hear the worry in his voice. “’m fine. It’s jus’... the heat. Heat makin’ me drowsy.” Burke gulped down more of the tepid water.

When he opened his eyes, Virdon was staring at him, with that slightly pinched expression on his face that he had worn ever since the damn lizard had taken a bite out of Burke’s arm. Burke wished he’d stop making that Dad face at him. “Really, I’m fine,” he repeated. “I’m good to go... gimme just a minute.”

“Take your time.” Virdon rose, still scrutinizing him. “I’ll take down the tent and then have a look at that wound.”

Burke said nothing to that, just crawled outside and stumbled behind a rock to take a piss. It belatedly occured to him that this would be the perfect opportunity for one of the lizards to finish him off, pants down, but he got away unscathed. Maybe the critters had to take a piss, too. In which case, good timing.

Virdon had taken down the tent and was sitting on his backpack when Burke returned; he briefly wondered if he had taken longer for that toilet break than he’d realized. At least he was able to walk over to Virdon without wobbling.

“I’ve decided to change course — we’ll go straight west now,” Virdon told him as he unwrapped the bandage around his arm. “That way, we’ll reach the river a lot sooner than if we stay on our current route, and we won’t have to worry about our water supply.”

“Yeah, but that won’t solve our little dragon problem,” Burke murmured, and tried not to flinch as Virdon poked his fingers into his swollen arm. “An’ that river won’t fill up our ammo supply.”

“There may be settlements along the river.” Virdon uncorked Galen’s tincture and dumped it on the wound - not that it would do any good, judging by the effect it’d had so far. The only upside, as far as Burke could tell, was that Virdon had now used up the rest that had been in the bottle, so at least there wouldn’t be any ape medicine inflicted on him in the future.

However much was left of it.

Burke pondered that thought while Virdon wrapped a fresh bandage around his arm. He knew a wound infection when he saw one, and this one was getting worse by the day. He wouldn’t even rule out a gangrene developing - maybe he should tell Virdon to saw off his arm while there was still time. But what good would he be with only one arm, if he survived that amputation in the first place? 

But if he didn’t survive, Al’s chances would still be better if they’d reached the river before that point, so he swallowed his remark about those river villages probably just housing more monkeys, and staggered to his feet. He shook off Virdon’s steadying hand and started walking.

It didn’t take long for their reptilian friends to show up. The moon’s sickle had grown a bit thicker during the previous nights, and its cold light was now bright enough to turn the night into some sort of very early dawn - much brighter than Burke remembered it from his own time, but there weren’t any artificial lights to pollute the atmosphere anymore. 

In that light, he could see the dragons coming at them with alarming speed. “Watch out, Al, they’re attacking!”

He reached for his gun without thinking, then stopped in mid-motion with a groan as the pain stabbed through his arm, right up to his shoulder. He wouldn’t be able to fire a rifle with that arm... but the handgun’s range was much shorter...

Burke drew it all the same. At that speed, they’d be in range in no time anyway-

Virdon fired, and the dragons leaped aside, dodging the precious bullet. Burke heard him murmur something and work the lever. But by now, the critters had vanished again.

“Don’ bother, Al, they’re outta range.” He felt almost too tired to say it, his tongue tripping over the sounds. “Fuckers know how to play us by now.” 

Were they smart enough to goad them into using up their ammo, or just hungry enough to try their luck? No way to tell, but his feverish brain was convinced they were that smart. Someone had fucked with their DNA, and they had smart monkeys here, so maybe those brainiacs had thought it’d be a good idea to make some smart dinos, too, to fight the monkeys?

“I only need two good hits,” Virdon murmured. “We can’t shake them off, and we can’t afford to let them attack us over and over again. We need to get lucky before they do.”

“Right.” Of course that was true, but Burke had a bad feeling that luck hadn’t been on their side ever since they had boarded the  _ Icarus. _

“If you’re up to it...” Virdon hesitated for a moment, and Burke felt a flicker of the old annoyance spark up inside him.

“Yeah, I’m up to it, whatever it is.”

“I want to keep going until we reach the river. That means no stopping at sunrise. You think you can do that?”

“Sure.” Burke said it without thinking. He’d be dead in a few days anyway, no need to slow Virdon down and destroy his chances to reach the safety of a village at that river. 

“Good.” Virdon sounded relieved. “We might be able to put some distance between them and us, too — I noticed that they vanished around noon. It seems to be too hot even for them then.”

“Great,” Burke muttered. “You don’t think it’ll be too hot for us, too? The critters will get roast meat when they find us.”

“As long as you’re complaining, I know you’re still fine,” Virdon said with a dry cough that was probably meant to be laughter. 

And so they walked on.

As the moon sailed towards the horizon, Burke found his gaze drawn again and again to the stars above him. In all those months while they had been running from the apes, he’d rarely had leisure to appreciate how silent the world had gotten. No  _ whoosh _ of cars racing down a highway: no planes droning overhead; no train rattling down a distant track. No machines hammering, no music blaring from loudspeakers, no cheers surging from a stadium.

No noise, only the wind all around them. 

And no visual noise, either. No ads along the road, no screens flickering, no city floodlighting the sky with its orange tint, outshining the stars. 

As shitty as this Earth was, it really gave the stars their proper place again. They were brighter than Burke had ever seen them back home. He understood now why some people compared them to diamonds, although he suspected that diamonds could never be so brilliantly beautiful-

His foot stepped into a hole, and he’d have fallen on his stupid face if Virdon’s hand hadn’t steadied him. “I’m okay,” Burke murmured, embarrassed, “didn’ look where I was goin’.”

“We should reach the river by the end of the day,” Virdon said. “Then you can rest.”

Burke’s mouth was too sticky, too dry, to make him feel inclined to argue. When they’d have reached that mythical river, the infection would still be raging in his blood, the mutated lizards would still be there, their ammo would still be almost used up — or already be used up at that point — and if they were lucky enough to find a village, it’d be full of monkeys who’d put a branding iron on their hides and sell them off to some plantation or something. 

No need to upset Al with that, though. Maybe he’d get lucky...

For a while, his thoughts became indistinct and fleeting - he couldn’t even say what he was thinking about. He was just drifting, surfacing only when he felt the heat of the rising sun at the back of his legs, and for a while, he was fascinated by his and Virdon’s shadows stretching out before them and getting smaller as the air was getting hotter. It reminded him of that time when he had pushed the water wheel on that farm... with the gorillas... he couldn’t remember their names right now. But he remembered that wheel, and his desperation back then, when it had seemed as if he was going in circles for all eternity, chained to that pump like the ox that had to do the job before him.

A sharp crack jolted him out of that reverie. Burke blinked and squinted at the rocks and dunes around him, but didn’t see anything.

“I think I got one this time,” Virdon was saying. It took Burke a while to make sense of his words. The dragons. Virdon thought he had shot one of the dragons following them.

Burke had totally forgotten about the dragons.

“That should keep the other one busy for a while,” Virdon murmured. “I could try and finish it off while it’s busy eating his comra-  _ dammit!” _

“Wha-” Burke broke off with a dry cough. Damn dust and wind had dried out his throat like they dried out the desert around them. 

Virdon pushed a water canister into his hand. “Drink. Drink, don’t just sip. You need to rehydrate if you don’t want to cook your brain.”

Burke drank, obediently, then greedily, forcing himself to stop when he felt the canister getting suspiciously light in his hand. He had drunk at least half of the water inside. It had been warm, and had tasted strangely sweet, and it had been the most delicious thing he’d had since... since Vanda and Urko had tormented him. Dried him out like one of Zana’s apricots. 

Suddenly he felt sick. That sweet taste... 

“Why’d you curse at your gun?” he asked to distract himself from the bad aftertaste that the water had left in his mouth.

“There are no bullets left in the magazine,” Virdon murmured reluctantly after a moment of silence. “I need to check if there are any left in your backpack.”

Burke obediently turned around to let him rummage in his backpack. He wasn’t able to shoot a gun in his current state anyway. “So?”

Virdon came around and showed him the five projectiles he had unmoored from the depths of his backpack. “I better find that remaining dragon and finish it off while it’s still distracted by its meal.”

“You  _ sure _ you got the other one?” Dizzy as he was, Burke’s spider sense was still intact, and he had a bad feeling about this. “If they lie in wait for you behind that crest, you’re done for. An’ then so am I.”

Virdon hesitated, then exhaled with an explosive sigh. “No, I’m not... not a hundred percent sure. I might’ve just injured it...”

“Let’s jus’ get the hell outta here.” His voice was only a murmur. He was so tired. 

“Yes, let’s get you to the river. Here, I found your goggles, too. Wait, let me...” 

Virdon had noticed that he couldn’t lift his right arm anymore, Burke thought groggily. Well, shit. Didn’t matter anymore now. He let Virdon put the goggles on his face — they were made of wood, with a horizontal slit in each goggle — and pull tight the leather straps. Immediately, the sun’s glare diminished. The slits let him keep his range of vision, but let only a bit of light through. He still wouldn’t have wanted to wear them while fighting those sand critters, but he was out of commission anyway, and who was he kidding, it pissed him off. If he hadn’t lost it and went at that thing with nothing but his fucking  _ knife... _

_ Pete Burke. Killed by his own stupidity. Not by the fucking monkeys, but by his own, goddamn- _

And wasn’t that the joke of the millenium?

“C’mon, Pete.” Virdon’s voice sounded infuriatingly gentle. “It’s not far, I promise.”

_ No, Al, you’re right. It’s not far for me anymore, no matter how far away that river is. _

His shadow was short and stunted now, melting under the scorching inferno above their heads. Soon, it would be gone completely. 

Burke set one heavy foot before the other.


	3. Chapter 3

At sunset, Virdon gave Burke their last water.

He didn’t tell him about it - why upset a sick man? They’d soon reach the river anyway, where they would fill up their canteens and hopefully find a village with a capable human healer, or maybe even an ape doctor, to treat Burke’s infection. Even if there was no village, Virdon hoped that the creatures that had been hunting them through the wasteland wouldn’t be able to follow them once they crossed the river. It was a faint hope - plenty of reptiles could swim - but he clung to it, because he had nothing else left to cling to. 

They were down to five bullets now.

He was certain that the dragons would attack during the night - they had been more agile during the cooler hours, and they seemed to have a visual advantage over humans in low light. Maybe they had a heat sense, like snakes; in that case, he and Burke would be like torches in the darkness to them. Virdon found himself looking over his shoulder every few steps, straining his ears to detect the soft scratching sounds of claws on rock, but he couldn’t make out any sounds amid the constant whisper of the wind.

The walk in the pounding heat during the day had been devastating for both of them, and though Burke had needed the water more urgently than him, Virdon now began to feel the effects of dehydration; his leg was aching more than usual, and he had a throbbing headache. It worried him — he was the only one capable of firing a gun now, and he couldn’t afford to get shaky and drowsy. The rapidly cooling air was a welcome refreshment, but no substitute for water-

A faint clicking of rubble was his only warning. A scaly head shot out of the darkness directly in front of him, and Virdon jerked up the rifle and fired without thinking. The shot went wide - he hadn’t really had time to take aim, and his arms were sluggish and slow to respond to his brain’s commands - but it chased the creature back into the night. Virdon stared into the darkness, his heart beating painfully in his chest, and listened for sounds that would tell him the position of their attackers. But all he heard was the swishing of the wind, and the blood rushing in his ears.

“Damn,” Burke muttered behind him. Virdon waited for the rest of his comment, but it never came.

Four bullets left.

They were far out in the desert now, out of sight of any ape patrol, so Virdon decided to light their torches. If the light didn’t keep the dragons at bay, the heat of the flame would, and it’d hopefully help him to preserve their ammunition until sunrise, when he’d have a better line of sight. He had two attempts left for each beast, and he was determined not to let them escape the next time.

Burke was silently stumbling along beside him, and Virdon didn’t try to get him to talk anymore. He was pretty sure that his friend was battling a fever; it was a miracle that he was still up and walking at this point. That dragon saliva must’ve been a hell of a cocktail - Virdon remembered that Komodo dragons were said to have rotting flesh stuck between their teeth, and that the bacteria in those chunks of rotten meat were more deadly than the bite itself. He hoped that 'their' dragons didn’t have the same arsenal injected into Burke’s arm, but whatever it was, Galen’s tincture had been useless against it.

He held the torch low and a bit behind him, so that the flame illuminated their surroundings without blinding his vision. The rocks threw long and twitching shadows under the flickering torchlight, masking any movements. After a moment's thought, Virdon crouched down and picked up a rock the size of an orange.

“Whatcha doin’?” Burke’s voice was rough, and his speech slurry, but Virdon was glad that he noticed his actions at all.

“Trying to preserve our ammunition until sunrise when I’ll have better light for my shot.”

“You gonna throw  _ rocks  _ at ‘em?” Burke sounded incredulous. Then he laughed . “Down to cavemen tech against the dinosaurs... fire an’ rocks... you show ‘em, Fred!”

Was he grasping for straws if he took Burke’s ability to recall The Flintstones as a sign that he wasn’t that ill? Virdon wondered. 

“Well, if you give me that knife of yours, I’ll make the jump to the Iron Age." His own knife was smaller, and he had only used it for shaving and for scraping wood scraps from branches for kindling. It wasn’t suited for slaying a dragon.  


”... yeah.” Burke hesitated. “Okay. Slay that dragon, Sir Al.”

Virdon took the knife without comment. Burke’s humor sounded... off, as if he was drunk.  No straw to grasp for, he really was that badly ill. 

When they  resumed their walk, he let Burke go in front of him. Somehow, he was convinced that if he let his friend trail behind him, he’d find him gone without a trace the next time he turned around.

The next attack was just as sudden, the dragon jumping him from his left, as if it knew that the glare of the flame was the one blind spot in the circle of light it cast around them. Virdon whirled around, smacking the torch against the side of its head, and threw his rock after it for good measure; the creature retreated a few yards, crouched down and hissed at him. 

“Don’ think they’re impressed by your rock, Al,” Burke mumbled.

“Maybe not, but the torch must’ve hurt it,” Virdon said without taking his eyes off the creature. It was shaking its head and pawing frantically at its eye. Maybe he had blinded it on that side. That would give him an advantage when he’d try to shoot it in the morning - if it didn’t see him taking aim, it wouldn’t try to dodge the bullet. For all their huge size, the creatures could zigzag like rabbits.

They were more cautious after that, but they didn’t stop attacking, circling him and Burke, and randomly jumping  out from the darkness beyond the firelight. Every time, Virdon managed to fend them off with fire, and rocks, and the occasional stab with Burke’s knife, but with each attack, he felt that his reaction got slower, and his stabs and throws weaker. The thirst was almost unbearable now, and he felt hot despite the cold desert air. 

Burke lit a second torch to help expand the cone of light around them, and for a short while, the beasts kept their distance, which helped him and Burke to make a few more miles westward. Virdon strained his ears for the sound of running water, but heard nothing. Either they were still too far away, or the wind was drowning it out.

If they could make it until sunrise... He still had four bullets left. 

They were climbing up another gravelly slope with some big rocks tumbled upon each other halfway up when the sky behind them finally turned pink, then golden, and Virdon decided that this was where he’d take up position to finish off the dragons. The spot looked decently defensible, and he estimated that he’d have another twenty minutes or so before the sun would rise over the horizon and blind him. It had to be now; Burke had broken down twice in the last half-hour, and didn’t respond when Virdon talked to him. 

Virdon checked for scorpions and snakes between the boulders, then urged Burke to sit down and rest, and returned to a rock that was tilted sideways like a table to peer down the slope.  It only took him a moment to spot the beast skittering towards them.

But only one. Where was the other one?

Virdon didn’t have time to ponder that question, or to sweep the area; his arms were shaking from exhaustion and dehydration, and the dragon was moving fast. He lay down on the rock table, using it as support to steady his hand, and took aim. The dragon was speeding up the hill, changing direction all the time. He’d have to anticipate where it would be next, but that was almost impos-

A shout behind him, pained, alarmed-

Virdon rolled onto his back and came into a half-sitting position just in time to see the second dragon land in the sand between the boulders, right on top of Burke, who was flailing to get away from its teeth. The huge body was undulating like a snake, its tail cutting through the air to balance out the body after its landing, and Virdon frantically fired at it until his rifle clicked empty. He could see the skin bursting open where the bullets buried themselves in its flesh, could see the beast pivoting towards him as if in slow motion.

Then a cloud of hot, foul air engulfed him from behind, and he knew that the second dragon had made it up the slope.

Virdon scooped sideways, drawing Burke’s knife, his gaze swiveling from one gaping mouth to the other.

The dragon jumped.

With a shout, Virdon jerked back, raising his knife in useless defense as the beast’s claws dug into the rock he was lying on. He felt the dragon’s belly brush across his shins, heared its claws scratch across the rough surface as it pushed off again, catapulting itself against its bleeding companion. 

Both dragons went down in a flurry of snapping teeth and slashing claws, and a cacophony of snarls and screams. Virdon scrambled down from his rock, falling face-first into the swirling dust in his haste to reach Burke. His hip complained with a sharp stab as he came to his feet; he hobbled over to where Burke was still scooting away from the fighting dragons, eyes wide in his pale face, and grabbed his good arm to drag him to his feet.  _ “Move!” _

They both stumbled up the rest of the slope and over the crest of the hill, engulfed in the sounds of slaughter and agony. Their eyes were glued to the treachery ground under their feet; every other step, Virdon threw a hasty glance over his shoulder, expecting the surviving predator to come after them any moment. 

He didn’t think of lifting his gaze to the horizon, and so the riverbed appeared before him all of a sudden, wide and barren, and without a single drop of water.

Burke was leaning heavily against him, his left arm still draped over his shoulder for support. At Virdon’s sudden stop, he slowly lifted his head and surveyed the dry plain at their feet.

“Huh, Al,” he finally whispered. “Jus’ our luck. Should’ve kept those bullets for ourselves.”

Virdon didn’t answer. He remembered Sally mentioning the Rio Grande drying up... but this river? It couldn’t be possible! 

Had someone redirected it, did it flow underground now, had there been some... some obstacle upriver? Did the apes build dams?

There  _ had _ to be water here! 

“C’mon, Pete,” he said at last, “let’s get to the other side before that dragon has finished eating its comrade.” He began to climb down the bank, and slowly led his dying friend out into what had once been the Tennessee river.

He’d find water, even if he’d had to dig up the riverbed.

* * *

_ Pain is good. Pain lets you know you’re still alive. _

For some reason, Burke remembered his childhood mantra all of a sudden. It had gone silent for many years, had become an understood reality that didn’t need words anymore. But now it was back, repeating itself endlessly in the voice of his first teacher, although his old man had never said those words. Young Pete had said them, during and afterwards. When the pain finally dulled into a strangely soothing afterglow... in those moments, his mantra had rang true. He  _ had _ felt more alive than usual then.

But now the pain wasn’t comforting. Now it wasn’t telling him he had survived. 

Now it was telling him he was going to die.

His whole right arm was aching, a hot, tearing sensation reaching from his fingertips into his armpit. The wound itself was swollen as if it would burst any moment, and although they hadn’t changed the bandage since morning, Burke was sure that the skin under the fabric was purple or black by now. He felt sluggish and chilly, signs of wound fever.

He bet he had a sepsis. Soon his kidneys would stop working, and he’d break down and die. 

Actually, lying down right now, and resting his dry, exhausted body until he was finally done sounded like an incredibly sweet idea. He should tell Al... tell him he needed a break... no need to tell the truth, he didn’t have enough energy left for a discussion...

Burke lifted his gaze from the rubble under his feet to tell Virdon to stop, and blinked against the glare. The sun had risen while he had been stumbling blindly along, and was now almost directly above them. The riverbanks to both sides had grown to unnatural heights, and the piles of bleached rubble beyond those dried-out cliffs reflected the sunlight something fierce. But what had forced him to squeeze his eyes shut for a moment had been a flash of sunlight almost as bright as its source in the sky.

Something shiny had reflected it. Something metallic, something... metallic that reached high into the sky.

Burke stopped in his tracks, blinking with dry eyes at the thing looming in the distance. “Al...”

“Yes, I know. But we have no choice this time.” Virdon didn’t turn around. “Come on, Pete, it’s just a little bit farther...”

Burke stayed where he was. “Al...” His voice was only a hoarse croak. “Al, that’s a goddamn  _ city  _ we’re in!” He nodded at the gleaming skeleton; he couldn’t lift his arms anymore to point at it. “That’s a steel-girder frame over there!”

“I  _ know.”  _ Virdon finally turned around to face him. “And I know everything you’re going to say about ancient, decayed human cities. And I’d agree with you on all accounts, but we’re out of water, and you have a hell of an infection in your arm.”

“An’ what does that have to do with  _ anything?”  _ He couldn’t even muster enough energy to feel anger; just dull annoyance. 

“There are cisterns in a city, sewers, maybe I can even find an access to the river itself if it just went underground...”

“That won’t help with my infection, an’ you know it.” Burke felt his eyes drooping shut. He was so. Tired. “I guess that lizard shit is already in my bloodstream. I’m not gonna make it, water or not.”

He began to put one foot before the other again, passing a stunned-looking Virdon. Probably wondering why he didn’t put up a bigger fight over entering that city. But if he was going to die anyway, a bunch of mutants wouldn’t make a difference anymore, right? And Al could use the water, if he was able to find some.

Something was strange. Something was... not right, but his fevered brain couldn’t pinpoint what it was. “How many bullets you’ve got left, Al?”

“None...” Virdon’s voice sounded strange. Hesitating. Worried? “I used them all up when those dragons attacked us. You... you remember that attack, right, Pete?”

”... yeah.” Yeah, there had been that attack, and Al had fired a few times at those dinos... “Whatcha gonna use now? Rocks?” 

“And our torches. They respect fire, at least.” 

He couldn’t see Al, he had his eyes squeezed almost shut, the light hurt so much. Or maybe it was the fever cooking his brain. “An’ my knife. You still have my knife, Al?”

“I still have your knife, yes. Don’t worry about those beasts, Pete, they seem to have fallen behind.”

_ That’s what’s wrong. _

The thought let him stumble; Burke could feel his whole body go cold. “Al... the dinos know I’m done for. Why’re they not following us? Into the city? Remind you of something?”

Virdon stopped and turned around; Burke saw his gaze sweeping the landscape behind him, but he felt too dizzy to turn around, too. Finally, Virdon shook his head. “I wounded one of them, and you know how they always went into a killing frenzy at the smell of blood. Those two either killed each other, or the winner is still busy digesting its comrade.”

It was a sensible explanation, but Burke’s unease didn’t abate; when they climbed out of the riverbed and made their way deeper into the ruins, it deepened even more. But he kept silent.

_ I couldn’t make Al turn around in that other city, when I wasn’t dying from a dino bite, there’s no way I can make him stop now. _

At least these ruins didn’t look remotely like that strangely alien city - they reminded Burke more of the ruins of Atlanta, minus the greenery. Here, where it was too dry and hot for even grass to cover the crumbling buildings, the wind had gnawed off the concrete from the steel skeletons underneath, and blown the dust and gravel into huge piles that blocked all but the biggest highways - and even there they had to search for a path between mountains of rubble and pot holes that could’ve swallowed a truck. There was no sign of life anywhere, just the scorching sun and the constant whisper of the wind, and underneath, a deep, mournful silence.

_ This was us,  _ Burke thought drowsily as they rested in the shadow of a rubble hill,  _ this is the memory of us. _

He felt terribly lonely all of a sudden.

Virdon had wandered off, after telling him to stay put while he took a closer look at a gully cover he’d discovered. Burke debated whether to sit down or stay upright, and decided to stay on his feet; he wasn’t sure he’d be able to get up again if he gave in to his exhaustion now. 

But there was a ringing in his ears, and a pressure building in his chest, and maybe he was about to faint and should sit down before he fell on his face...

The ringing got more intense - not louder, not really  _ audible,  _ but digging into his skull, a sensation close to pain that made it difficult to draw a breath. Burke blindly reached out to steady himself against a boulder, and blinked rapidly against his dimming vision. His eyeballs felt strange - as if they were shivering... as if they were vibrating in their sockets.

Nausea hit him, and with it, an intense feeling of dread. Something was coming for him, was hovering all around him, and he had to get away, run...

But his legs weren’t working anymore. His whole body was going numb, while the ringing inside his skull got sharper, piercing his eardrums with sudden pain, and his vision grayed out at the edges. 

_ They’re coming, they’re coming for me- _

The air clamped down on him, squeezing him like a sponge, and the world went dark.

* * *

The air in the sewer tunnel was stale and unmoving, but considerably cooler than above ground, and for a moment, Virdon considered climbing back up and getting Burke down here, too, away from the heat. The drain was also too narrow for the sand dragons to follow them, but if he didn’t find water down here, he’d have to get Burke up again, and Virdon wasn’t too sure if his friend would be able to climb the rusted and shaky ladder in his current state. 

If he did manage to find water, they’d set up camp down here. 

His eyes had adjusted to the darkness while he had been debating with himself, and he cautiously edged forward. The sewer bed was dry where he was standing, and in the last beams of sunlight reaching the bottom, Virdon saw that cracks were running down its length, some of them several feet wide. He fleetingly wondered about the cause - well, this region was a seismic zone. Earthquakes weren’t uncommon in the eastern half of the continent.

He hoped they’d be out of these ruins before another quake happened. Even without Urko, he wasn’t keen on being trapped underground again.

Virdon lit a torch and began to walk down the sewer bed. There should be several levels of sewer tunnels, and water might still be pooling deeper down. It was just a matter of finding the next connective shaft-

A wave of dizziness overwhelmed him, and he staggered sideways until he bumped into a wall. He blinked rapidly; his vision had darkened all of a sudden, although he was still holding the torch, and he could still feel the heat of the flame. The torch was still burning; he just couldn’t see a thing. Gray blobs wavered before his eyes; his heart raced, and his insides twisted violently as if they couldn’t decide which end to use to get rid of their contents.

He pushed away from the wall and turned into the direction he had come from, trying to get back to the drain. Something was down here, something invisible, attacking him. Poison gas? 

He couldn’t see anything, hear anything, feel anything, not even his own body, not even the ground beneath his feet...

...

When he woke up, he couldn’t move. 

After a moment of panicked confusion, Virdon realized that he was lying half-buried under a pile of gravel - heavy in its entirety, but the pebbles were small enough to roll off him when he pushed himself into a sitting position. His torch had gone out - good for him,  he could’ve easily set himself on fire while he had been unconscious - but there was a bit of light above him, enough that he could see that he had fallen into one of the bigger gaps in the pavement. Another stroke of luck: the crack had narrowed down almost immediately. With a bit of a stretch, Virdon could reach the edge and pull himself up and into the sewer proper again. 

What had just happened? His last thought before he had lost consciousness had been poison gas - his cramping insides had strongly suggested it - but one didn’t wake up again from that. It was too dark to see what had caused this violent physical reaction, and Virdon didn’t feel inclined to light another torch and go down the sewer tunnel again; no need to trigger whatever alarm might’ve been set up in there.

He’d have to find another sewer and hope that they weren’t all rigged like this. With a deep sigh, Virdon grabbed the lowest rung of the ladder and began to climb up the shaft. If the next tunnel was secured the same way...  _ if  _ it was some security system, and not just his own exhaustion, and maybe a gut infection wreaking havoc on his body... 

If it was a security system that had somehow weathered the centuries, he’d disable it somehow. Even if he broke down a dozen times before he found the switch. He wouldn’t let a piece of ancient tech decide over his and Burke’s fate. And speaking of Burke, he should better check on him before going off to find another sewer.

But when Virdon returned to the spot where he had told Burke to sit down and wait for him, his friend was gone. He hastily searched the surrounding area, but came up empty. 

Judging by the changed length and angle of the shadows, he couldn’t have been unconscious for more than fifteen minutes; not enough time for Burke to wander off on his own, not even in a delirium, at least not far enough to vanish completely. Virdon returned to Burke’s waiting spot and began his search again, looking more closely for tracks this time.

His attention paid off; there was a blood stain on one of the fragments of concrete, and when Virdon crouched down to inspect it more closely, he saw the soaked bandage coiled up between two rocks. 

It couldn’t have come off on it’s own - Virdon had taken care to tightly knot the ends. Either Burke had unwrapped his arm to take a look at the wound...

... or someone else had. How probable was it for technology to still be functional after a thousand years without maintenance and repair?

Virdon stared at the bandage, and slowly reached for Burke’s knife that was still tied to his belt.

Whatever had caused him to collapse down in the sewer had also taken Pete. Someone was using advanced technology to render intruders blind, paralyzed, and ultimately unconscious... and judging by what was visible of this city, its inhabitants didn’t live in those ruins above ground. 

They lived beneath them.

The mutated creatures in that other city had their nests underground, too; Virdon squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, trying to force the memories of the swarm out of his mind. Whatever had created those critters hadn't given them the intelligence to operate technology. Whoever - whatever - lived _here_ wouldn't be like them. They had to have human intelligence. Most probably, they were humans... humans who had never fallen under the yoke of the apes.

Virdon rose and swept his gaze over the ruins. Somewhere in the vicinity, there had to be an access point to the underground levels of the city - to the  _ actual  _ city. Whoever had taken Burke hadn’t had much time to vanish; but Burke’s wound hadn’t bled anymore, and even if it had started again after someone had ripped off its bandage, it wouldn’t be enough to leave a trail - and what little droplets might be there would dry up in no time under the scorching sun, and be scattered by the incessant wind.

It took Virdon longer than he liked to find the hatch - he had gradually extended his search area in widening circles, straining his eyes against the glare of the sunlight that was reflected from the stones,  looking for doors, hatches, sewer shafts - anything that lead underground. He couldn’t even be sure this was the right one, as there were no traces of blood on it. 

But it had an electronic lock.

Virdon stared at it for a long while, not quite trusting his eyes. The keypad bore arabic numerals, something he hadn’t seen since the  _ Icarus  _ had crashed on this... in this time. They seemed oddly out of place.

There was no way he’d be able to pick that lock - not with what he had available in his backpack. Virdon tiredly rubbed his face. He’d been searching for a pocket of civilization with advanced technology for so long, and now that he had apparently found it, its inhabitants had locked him out. He would’ve laughed at the irony if they hadn’t also taken Burke.

At the same time, though, he felt inappropriately triumphant. Burke had always scoffed at the idea that humanity could’ve preserved its heritage in remote, isolated places, but here it was, the proof that he had been right with his assertion. Technology, knowledge, science  _ had  _ survived; sending a signal back home wasn’t completely out of the question. Maybe they wouldn’t have to travel all the way across the continent. 

Should he just... knock? Ring the bell? Or the alarm, more likely, and be knocked out a second time by whatever security system they had installed. Judging by his symptoms right before he fell unconscious, Virdon suspected they were using sonic weapons - ultrasound, or infrasound, or a combination of both. They must’ve rigged the sewers with some kind of emitters, then. Smart people.

Considering the close vicinity of the apes - and the sand dragons - securing their home in this manner was not just logical, but absolutely necessary for survival. It didn’t mean they were automatically hostile to outsiders; they had taken in Burke, who was in dire need for medical treatment, and would’ve taken him in, too, if he hadn’t fallen into that crack, and been half-buried under rubble on top of it. If they had seen Burke as an enemy, they would’ve just killed him.

Unless, of course, they wanted to interrogate him first. 

For now, Burke’s captors seemed to be unaware of his existence, and Virdon decided that he preferred it that way. Trusting these people on what came down to mainly conjecture was just too big a gamble. He’d have to find another way in - one that would inevitably ring some new alarm - and then try to hide inside that underground structure until he had figured out its inhabitants. 

He’d worry about finding Burke and getting them both out later. And if the people here were friendly, after all, well... there was no shame in apologizing to them for his unwarranted distrust.

His search was rewarded with the discovery of a ventilation shaft, its entrance secured with a metal grill that Virdon removed with some effort and the constant anticipation of another attack from the security system. Its absence didn’t reassure him - if there had been sensors and emitters in a defunct sewer channel, there would absolutely be sensors in the ventilation tunnel. And he had no way to avoid them.

Virdon quickly shrugged off his backpack and rummaged for his rope. He’d tie his backpack to one end to serve as an anchor - and as a detector for any traps that might be hidden; one never knew how many redundancy levels had been implemented, but from what he had seen until now - or not seen, as it were - he guessed the citizens were more on the greater redundancy-end of the spectrum. Not that he faulted them for it - he’d have done exactly the same in their situation.

Maybe they’d be able to...  Virdon put the thought firmly out of his mind. No need to get his hopes up prematurely, and besides, he had more urgent concerns now. 

He secured the backpack and hooked the rope’s anchor into the frame of the ventilation shaft when he saw movement out of the corner of his eye.  


He froze.

At the other side of the street, about twenty yards from him, crouched a desert dragon. It was bleeding from many wounds, but didn’t seem to mind them. It fixed him with an unblinking stare. 

Virdon found he couldn’t move a muscle.

“So...,” he managed after a moment, “you survived your little fight with your comrade after all.” Talking seemed to slowly break the spell that had nailed him to the spot, so he continued. “I’m sure he made a nice meal, so why don’t you go home? Gluttony is a sin...”

The dragon jumped.

Virdon spun around and dove headfirst into the ventilation shaft, grasping blindly for the rope. The tube was too narrow to let him somersault into an upright position, but too wide to let him use the walls for slowing his descent; and for a long, terrible moment, he plummeted into the blackness.  He could hear the dragon slamming into the opening above and clawing its way down after him, and now he didn't _dare_ to slow down; not yet, not even if it meant he’d be smashing his head into the unseen floor at some point. That would still be better than to be torn apart by the monster behind him.

The screeching sound of claws over metal stopped for a moment; then the walls around him began to shudder. It took Virdon a moment to process what was happening: the dragon was stuck. It was a good deal bigger than a human - too big to fit into a ventilation shaft.

The realization tore Virdon from his panicked stupor. He was still gripping the rope, his palms torn open from the friction, and slick with blood; now he angled for the rope with his legs, hooking them around the taut line to break his fall. He had no way of knowing if the rope was long enough to reach the ground, or if it was the weight of his backpack that kept it stretched tight; in any case, avoiding a smashed skull seemed to be feasible, now that the danger of being eaten alive wasn’t imminent anymore.

It was the opposite of a clean rappel; he was bumbling downward with jerks and stops like a bag of potatoes, clumsy and painful, and altogether inelegant. But he didn’t smash his skull when he finally reached his backpack, and in the weak light from a branching-off corridor, he saw that his luck had returned somewhat - the floor was close enough that he could tilt over and touch it with his feet.

He had to steady himself against the wall until the dizziness subsided; but the dragon was still thrashing in the tube above him, and the sound was transported through the metal and down the corridors. Whoever lived down here had already been alerted to the uproar - guards would be here any moment. Virdon hastily untied his backpack and tugged resignedly at the rope; he wouldn’t be able to unhook it now, not with a dragon-shaped plug up there.

To his surprise, the rope came loose; the end was frayed, maybe snapped off by a dragon claw. Virdon didn’t waste time wondering how it had happened; he just snatched up the rope bundle and his backpack, straining to detect any sounds of an approaching patrol. But it was impossible to be certain over the cacophony from above; the thrashing sounds seemed to be closer now, as if the creature was slowly forcing its way downward. Another reason not to linger.

Virdon looked up and down the still deserted corridor, but the bare, gray walls didn’t give him any hints as to their destination. He shrugged internally, drew Burke’s ANSA knife just in case, and began to jog down the corridor, randomly choosing a direction. 


	4. Chapter 4

The corridor was blessedly deserted, but Virdon knew that this could change any moment, and as soon as he ran into anyone down here, his clothes and backpack would immediately give him away as an outsider. He very much preferred be the one to determine the moment of first contact; he had already decided to to blend in and get an overview of the layout of this place and its people without drawing attention to himself  _ before _ he had unwittingly led a mutated goanna into these people’s home. Considering the latest developments, that strategy had solidified even more. 

So — first, he needed to find water; and if possible, also ammunition for his handgun. 

But before that, he needed a place that was sufficiently out of the way to allow him to rest for a second and get his bearings. He still felt dizzy, from the rapid descent down the shaft as well as from thirst; it was difficult to think straight with his wooly head...

Unfortunately, the corridor seemed to be no more than an access tunnel to the ventilation shafts that opened into it at regular intervals. If all else failed, he’d have to hide in one of them, but if they went straight up, that would be impossible—

The sound of approaching footsteps put an end to his indecision. Virdon threw his backpack and the messy coil of rope into the ventilation shaft that opened at face level to his right, hoisted himself up, and struggled inside, ignoring the fresh pain in his raw palms. To his relief, this shaft made a soft curve at its base before it went up to the surface, just deep enough that he could retreat into the shadows and be hidden from view. 

To his even greater relief, the people hurrying down he corridor looked human. They weren’t lizard-like mutants, like in that other city — the one that had almost killed Zana. Virdon could see their faces clearly in the dim light from the few lamps mounted at the ceiling. 

... electric lights, another similarity to that other tunnel he and Burke had walked down months ago. For a moment, Virdon wondered if the lizard-things back there had killed off the original inhabitants — if the original citizens of that other city had been humans like these ones here, survivors of the unknown cataclysmic event that had handed the planet over to the apes—

He brought his mind firmly back to the present. There was no time for these idle ruminations. 

He’d have to ditch the backpack - there was just no way he’d be able to conceal it. Maybe he’d be able to secure it on the way back, but for now, he had to decide what to keep and what to leave behind.

First of all, though, he needed to take care of his hands. They were still burning as if on fire, the palms sticky from slowly congealing blood. In the darkness, Virdon couldn’t see the damage, but there wasn’t much he could do about it, anyway. He was out of water, and out of Galen’s wound tincture. Whatever germs the rope had seared into his flesh when it had whipped through his hands would fester under the bandage he was wrapping around them now. Maybe he’d be able to steal some antibiotics later, if these people had something like a hospital down here. 

He hoped they had one, and had taken Burke there, instead of taking him to serve as the main course for dinner. 

A gentle draft made him look up. The ventilation shaft was shrouded in darkness, even more than the dimly-lit corridor outside, but Virdon thought he could make out movement above him — the lazy spin of rotors cutting through the air. 

If he had come down  _ this _ shaft, the blades would’ve cut through him just as cleanly. By sheer dumb luck, he’d happened upon a defunct ventilation duct. Virdon exhaled softly and returned his attention to bandaging his hands.

There wasn’t much from his backpack that he could take with him: the empty water canteen that he hoped to refill somewhere, flint and steel, his handgun, his own knife, and Burke’s ANSA knife. 

Water, fire, weapons. The barest of equipment, not at all sufficient to take them beyond the desert to the west. But that worry was for later.

Hasty footsteps were coming down the corridor, from the opposite direction than before — footsteps of only one person. The group must’ve sent one of their own back, maybe to get reinforcements for fighting the dragon — had the beast made it out of the shaft and into the corridor? Faint noises of upset were drifting towards him, but it was impossible to tell if they were coming from inside the duct or from the corridor itself.

Virdon crouched in the mouth of the ventilation shaft, waited until the lonely guard had almost passed him by, then jumped down on him, knocking him off his feet. He pinned the man to the ground, keeping him in a chokehold until his struggling ceased. 

The guard was still breathing, and Virdon knew he didn’t have much time before he’d regain consciousness. He removed the guard's weapon belt - something that looked like a cattle prod - then hastily stripped him from his tunic and boots, praying they would fit; the boots were too small, squeezing his toes, but that couldn’t be helped now.

His victim was also wearing gloves, which Virdon found strange — there was no need to protect oneself against the scorching sun down here, so bundling oneself up with headgear and gloves didn’t really make sense. But if he wanted to blend in, he had no choice. 

When he pulled them off, he jerked back in surprise: the man’s hands were red and raw, as if they had been badly burned, or doused in acid; new skin had already grown back, but it looked somehow too smooth and glossy. There was no blood, though, and after turning the gloves inside-out and seeing that they were dry and unstained, Virdon gritted his teeth and put them on. Like the boots, the gloves were a bit too small, or maybe the bandages were making his hands bulkier. 

He hesitated a bit before he moved on to the headdress, a cap that looked vaguely like something a pharao would wear; but the man was already beginning to stir, and Virdon knew he was running out of time. He quickly pulled off the cap and breathed a sigh of relief when the skull underneath showed only normal, a bit loose skin — though no hair. 

He quickly gagged and bound the man with the remaining rope and dragged him into the ventilation shaft, then squeezed the cap on his own head, trying to push his hair underneath. He rubbed his hand over his face — the stubble would give him away if anyone looked too closely, but that, too, was something that couldn’t be helped now; maybe he’d get an opportunity to shave, if he could find water. 

Not that he needed another reason to seek out the nearest fountain — the thirst that had already plagued him back on the surface was now raging with an intensity that made it hard to think of anything else. Virdon gave a last tug to the sleeves of his new outfit; then he calmly walked down the corridor, away from the commotion behind him, trying to ignore his pinching new boots.

* * *

For a long time, the corridor didn’t seem to lead anywhere; and though it was hard to tell, Virdon was pretty certain that it didn’t go downwards, either, but stayed at the same level. Maybe these people had simply moved into the basement, and hadn’t dug deeply into the rock, as they had in that other city... the one he’d begun thinking of as cursed. The one that had killed Zana’s baby, and had almost destroyed their little group of fugitives in the aftermath.

He didn’t want to think about the aftermath. 

The light before him changed, getting brighter; the corridor did end here, apparently, leading into a kind of hall. Virdon slowed his step and reached for his knife. He didn’t intend to kill anyone, not if he didn’t have to, but if he had to lead someone into a quiet corner out of the way without a lot of fuss, the sight of a blade was an effective way of ensuring their compliance.

The light was brighter than in the corridor because it was sunlight. Virdon squinted up at the skylights looking down on rows and rows of plants that were stacked in long shelves, forming green walls of a labyrinth of unknown size. 

Hydroponic gardens. Of course; these people had to eat, too. He slowly moved deeper into the green mass, straining eyes and ears for any movement or sound. The plant cover was too thick, though, hiding any gardeners moving between the rows. But it worked in his favor, too: as long as he didn’t run into someone in the narrow path between the plants, the green walls would hide him as well. 

Virdon inhaled deeply, savoring the cool and moist air, the rich, green scent of vegetation; it was such a relief after the dusty, alcaline desert winds. Who’d have thought he’d find a Garden Eden here of all places, tucked safely into the ground?

The paths between the plant shelves were glowing softly with indirect light; after a moment of searching, Virdon discovered that the light that fell through the roof high above him was reflected into every corner by strategically placed mirrors - probably to save electricity for artificial lighting. 

These people did generate electricity somehow — they used lightbulbs in the corridor — but Virdon had to admit that Burke had been right: it was hard to imagine how they still managed to do so after a thousand years. How were they able to manufacture new parts if a generator or a solar panel broke down?

How would they keep a computer operational?

He shoved the thought away. Apparently, these people  _ had  _ found a way, despite Burke’s misgivings, and using the little electricity they generated as efficiently as possible was part of their strategy. Maybe they had found some equally creative solution for his computer problem, too.

For now, he decided to find one of these mirrors at eye level, as well as the water source for the plants, and put the finishing touch on his appearance. Most human males of this time didn’t shave at all — probably because their ape masters didn’t want them to routinely wield sharp objects — and while they had been on the run from Urko, it would’ve been wise to blend in in that regard. But it had somehow been important to be different, to preserve a bit of 22 nd century civilization. Galen, of course, didn’t shave, which meant that neither of them owned a mirror, so he and Burke had shaved each other’s face. It was that, or shave by feel and risk an infection of the unavoidable cuts. 

Shaving had lost its significance once they had left simian civilization behind, but apparently, the humans here kept their faces clean, too. Virdon admitted to himself that he was glad to have a reason for getting rid of his beard. It did provide protection from the sun for his face, but the sweat caught in it was itching like hell.

It took him some time to find the original water source, hidden away in a corner that wasn’t lit by mirrors. He hadn’t dared to simply tap one of the pipes that ran along the plant shelves — very probably, the water in them was laced with fertilizer to make up for the lack of soil, and thus was neither drinkable, nor suited for shaving. But he was pretty certain that the fertilizer was only being added in the next basin, and at some point, he just had to take his chances. 

At least the water tasted neutral when he tried a sip; then he drank deeply, struggling not to gulp down too much of the blessed water at once. 

Refreshed, Virdon moistened his beard and went back to the nearest mirror to scrape off the hair. It was a slow and painful procedure without any soap and only a wet rag, slowed down even more because he couldn’t afford to nick his skin if he wanted to avoid second glances and unwanted attention. When he was finally done, he drew a deep breath; he had unconsciously held it for almost the whole procedure. Now if he could just manage to keep his distance to these people, he’d be fine...

Something crashed through the shelves at the entrance of the corridor he had come through. Virdon whipped his head around, but the shelves blocked his view- 

Snarls, panicked cries. Human cries, but the snarling didn’t sound remotely human...

_ The sand dragon! It must’ve struggled loose- _

_ Where are the guards? Did it kill all those guards? _

More crashing sounds, quickly advancing in his direction. Virdon hastily retreated along the narrow path between the shelves; he was painfully aware that he was completely out of ammunition, and only armed with his own, and Burke’s ANSA knife — no match for a furious reptile the size of a pony. 

And even if he had been, he didn’t want to draw attention to himself. He didn’t even know if these people spoke the apes’ language. He was pretty sure they didn’t speak English anymore. The last thing he needed was having to explain how he killed the monster with little more than his bare hands... which was devastatingly improbable anyway. More likely, he’d end up as dinner-

The furious growl in the neigbouring aisle cut his frantic ruminations short. The dragon was blindly ploughing an erratic path through the installation, and Virdon began to crawl through the spaces between the planting tubes himself, trying to get as much distance between himself and the beast as possible. Was it following his scent? Where were those guards?

He scrambled through the shelves on a route perpendicular to the paths between them, on his belly half of the time, while the cacophony of splintering tubes, toppling shelves, and panicked shouts seemed to rise up all around him, making it impossible to determine the location of the dragon. Was it behind him, in front of him, on top of him?

All of a sudden, he found himself in a clearing - although it looked more like a crash site. Splintered shelves leaned drunkenly against each other, flattened and broken tubes, still bleeding water, looked strangely exposed without their enclosing plant containers. The green scent of shredded plants added an oddly peaceful counterpoint to the destruction. Virdon stood frozen at the sight, the water trickling from the smashed tubes soaking his boots.

Somewhere behind him, a rapid succession of shots announced the arrival of the guards. The crashing sounds stopped; Virdon allowed himself a cautious breath of relief. They had finally killed the beast, the last of its pack. At least that problem was resolved. And they used firearms - that meant they had ammunition, although he had yet to determine if it was suited for his own weapon.

The creature’s arrival had created new problems, of course. Someone would come up here to assess the damage, count the dead and the survivors. He had to leave before the guards cordoned off the perimeter. Not through the corridor he — and that beast — had come from; it would be crawling with guards even now. Hopefully, there would be another corridor somewhere on the far side of the garden. He’d use the paths between the shelves in the part that hadn’t been destroyed. 

The dragon’s rampage had felt longer for Virdon while he had been crawling for his life, but actually, the destroyed space was pretty small. The guards had caught up with the beast only an instant later, and most of the dense, green labyrinth was still intact. It would be easy to escape their notice.

Virdon had taken no more than three steps between the planted walls when he almost tripped over a prone body. The gardener was wearing a green outfit, which had camouflaged them almost perfectly.

At first he thought the person — this time, the clothing didn’t reveal whether it was a man or a woman — was dead. They were curled up in a fetal position, arms crossed in front of their belly, the sleeves soaked with blood. Virdon stared down at them, suddenly overwhelmed with guilt.

_ I led this thing down here... and these people didn’t stand a chance. _

But he’d had no other choice — he hadn’t stood a chance against it, either. 

He was about to step over the figure and hurry on, when it suddenly stirred and moaned. The injured gardener turned their head and blinked; then their gaze cleared and found Virdon’s face. They began to speak, their voice as androgynous as the rest of their appearance.

The words were absolute gibberish. But the pain and fear in their voice was unmistakeable.

Virdon crouched down and laid a soothing hand on the person’s shoulder. He had no idea what to do. It was clear that these people didn’t speak the apes’ language, and a thousand years in isolation had changed their English beyond comprehension. He couldn’t console this person, but what was worse, he also couldn’t call for help without immediately blowing his cover. 

But he also couldn’t just let them lie here and bleed to death. Virdon pondered if an inarticulate cry, or ‘hey! hey!’ would be sufficient to alert others to their fellow’s plight; he’d just make a hasty retreat and hope that taking care of the victim of a dragon attack would have priority over chasing him. He absently patted the gardener’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, friend. You’ll be alright, I’ll get help...”

The man - Virdon had mentally flipped a coin and decided that it was a man, referring to them as ‘the person’ felt, ironically, too impersonal - fell silent, frowning at him. 

“Y uz bohkchat?” he said. 

Virdon blinked. “What?”

The man’s eyes widened. “I be uppa! Dayt? I be uppa, uppa-n outta!” He began to cry. 

Virdon helplessly patted his shoulder. The man’s accent was thick, and Virdon had no idea what ‘uppanoutta’ meant. “You’ll be fine,” he murmured; somewhere to his left, voices were approaching. “People are coming, they’ll help you,” he whispered. He had to leave - he couldn’t risk being found and questioned.

The dying man grabbed his wrist. “I kennoh bohkchat,” he wheezed. “Kennall _technical manuals_. Kennall _ safety procedures_. All _ regulations_. Bu’ no bohkman,” something unintelligible, “woz uppa?” More words followed, but Virdon couldn’t decipher any of them.

As if the man had sensed his confusion, he broke off, his chest heaving; the outburst had weakened him, but his eyes were still boring into Virdon’s, at once desperate and accusing. He wanted guidance, Virdon realized, but he hadn’t understood half of the man’s questions, and he wasn’t sure he had the answers to the other half.

Some of his words had been plain English, amazingly. Virdon went over the rest of the man’s little speech in his mind, trying to piece together their meaning. “Even a  _ bohkman _ doesn’t have all the answers,” he finally said. “Life is a mystery. And so is death.”

He was unsure if he should talk about God - from what he had seen during their long flight north, none of the human communities had retained the faintest memory of their former faith, be it Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, or any other religion. He suspected that this had been quite deliberate on the part of their simian masters; but he had no idea if the people of this isolated settlement had preserved their religion along with their... technical manuals. Did they go to church on Sundays?

“The Lord will take care of you,” he finally ventured. “There’s no need to be afraid. And others are coming, they’ll take you to a hospital.” 

He froze as a sudden thought struck him. Maybe they’d take this man to same hospital where Burke was...?

Once help arrived, could he follow them to that hospital without being discovered? Time was of the essence, since he had no idea what these people intended to do with Burke once he had recovered, and figuring out the structure and organization of this settlement would take too much time. It might be as huge as the city above it had once been, and in that case, it could take him weeks to figure out his friend’s whereabouts — provided he managed to stay undetected for so long.

It was worth the risk, Virdon decided, as agitated voices sounded from the wrecked clearing behind him. He uttered a strangled cry for help, one that would draw attention without giving away his identity. Then he bent down to whisper in the wounded man’s ear.

“I must go now... The others will be here soon.”

The man didn’t answer; his eyes had drooped shut. Virdon wasn’t sure if he was still breathing, but the voices were dangerously close now, and he had no idea if the owners of those voices were gardeners or guards. With a last look at the still form, he retreated deeper into the green shadows between the panels.

He watched from his hiding place as a crowd of distraught workers descended on the dying man. He didn’t understand a single word of the excited chatter, but from the anguished tones he concluded that their colleague was probably beyond help by now. He still hoped that they’d leave the final diagnosis to a doctor — otherwise, his clever plan would evaporate before his eyes.

After some back and forth, two of the newcomers hurried off, only to return moments later with a wheel barrow. The limp body was loaded into the barrow, and the whole procession took off... headed towards the very same corridor Virdon had come from.

Virdon stared after them, frozen to the spot. That corridor would be crawling with guards now, and while it would probably be the last place they’d be looking for an intruder right now, he ran a considerable risk that one of them would mistake him for a fellow guard and ask him a question, or bark an order at him. 

Still. There was a slim chance he’d get lucky, while his cover was guaranteed to be blown if he ran into a cordon at the other end of this plot. And maybe the workers wouldn’t enter that corridor; maybe they were just headed in its general direction. Virdon took a deep breath and hurried after them.

* * *

His luck held as long as they were still moving through the plantation — the workers’ attention was on the destruction of the shelves and pipes, and the few guards he spotted were far enough away to ignore him. Once he entered the corridor, though, his fears proved to be justified: except for his little group of green-clad workers pushing their wheelbarrow down the corridor, every uniform was the light gray of security. 

Virdon straightened imperceptibly and squared his shoulders. The best strategy to avoid being harrassed by a guard was to give off the impression that he had a higher rank then them. His own tunic didn’t have any insignia, but neither did any of the other uniforms he’d seen so far; he assumed that security was organized in small teams where all members knew each other. He’d be an unknown face, so his place in the hierarchy would also be undetermined, and he could fill that blank space with body language. It wouldn’t hold for longer than a few seconds, but that was all he needed.

He could still feel sweat breaking out all over his body as he reached the ventilation shaft he and the dragon had crashed down. A throng of guards was standing around it, peering into the opening and shouting up to someone inside the tube. As Virdon passed them, an answering shout echoed down, and something hit the floor with a clang.

It was the other end of his rope with the anchor still attached, Virdon saw from the corner of his eyes as he hurried past the guards whose attention was now riveted on the evidence that someone other than a dumb reptile had broken through their defenses. One of them had crawled all the way up to the surface and unhooked it. 

He couldn’t decide if the distraction was in his favor or against it. They’d ramp up their search now — his time for finding Burke and escaping back to the surface had just shrunk by a dangerous degree.

The guards’ presence decreased considerably after this point, and he dared to breathe a little lighter. The gardeners ahead of him had noticed his presence in the meantime, but pretended to ignore him. Well, maybe they were pushing the barrow a little faster.

Virdon’s faint amusement died when he saw where the little procession was headed, though. The corridor ended at a double door that didn’t lead into another section of the compound, as he had hoped, but to a small room without a second door. A cabin.

They were entering an elevator cab.  _ There was more than one level to this colony!  _ So much for his plan to simply search every corner until he had found Burke...

Behind him, another shout announced the discovery of the man whose uniform he had taken. 

There was no time to think about alternatives. Virdon squeezed through the already closing doors and glowered at the workers who pressed their backs against the walls in response. They were clearly intimidated by his presence, hopefully enough that they wouldn’t dare to start a conversation. 

The doors whooshed shut, but the cabin didn’t move. Virdon stared at the gardeners; the gardeners stared back at him.

Nobody moved. 

The doors would open up again any moment, with a swarm of guards poised to storm the cabin and arrest him. Virdon felt new sweat breaking out on his forehead. Why didn’t the damn thing start moving?

He made an impatient gesture with his hand, accompagnied by an inarticulate, but equally impatient “Hnh?” and the workers shuffled aside to reveal a control panel. Apparently, his uniform gave him priority access to the floor buttons. 

Six buttons, six floors — assuming this elevator had access to all levels. Virdon stabbed the lowest one with his finger, willing the mechanism to lock the doors and move him out of the guards’ reach before they could barge in. He only dared to breathe again when a jerk announced that they were finally leaving the uppermost level. 

One of the gardeners timidly pushed the second button from the top and then retreated as far as possible to the other end of the cabin, putting the wheelbarrow with their injured colleague between themselves and Virdon. At any other time, this amount of fearful deference to his uniform would’ve given him pause, but right now, his mind was on more pressing things.

He shouldn’t have been so surprised to find an elevator here; a city above a certain size had only two choices for expansion, outward or upward — or, in this case, downward. This had consequences for his search pattern: while a horizontally organized city would assign separate quarters to its functional units, a vertical structure would probably place them at different levels. Since the gardeners were headed to level two, this had to be the colony’s medical level.

Burke would be on that level somewhere — considering the state he had been in, he was in no shape for an interrogation; they’d have to take care of his wound infection first. Actually, this wasn’t too bad - level two was still close to the surface, enabling a quick escape. He’d still need to secure some provisions, and replace their lost equipment — including ammunition, and probably weapons...

Virdon moved aside to let the workers push their wheelbarrow through the opening door and merely placed his foot on the threshhold to keep it open. The corridor on the other side of the door was darker than the ones on the upper level — a lot of bulbs seemed to either have burned out, or weren’t switched on. 

He waited until the group had vanished around the soft curve of the corridor before he left the elevator to follow them. The corridor, like the one on the first level, ended in an enormous cave that housed the functional structure of its level.

Its function didn’t appear to be health-related, though. 

If level one had been this settlement’s agricultural center, with green fields and orchards, then this next level was their industrial park. After the brightly-lit, lush idyll of the first level — well, it had been an idyll until the sudden appearance of the desert dragon, at least — the dim lighting, the sharp sting of unknown chemical compounds, and the rattling of machines running somewhere in the background provided a sharp contrast. Why in the world would these people take their wounded comrade  _ here? _

On the other hand, Virdon mused as he passed a huge construction that seemed to consist of nothing but pipes and tanks, maybe they had smaller hospitals on every other level, for quicker access in case of accidents. It would be smart to build in redundancies. But in that case, would he find Burke here, too?

Virdon’s step faltered when another group of workers appeared around a corner, coming his way; their robes had a different color from the gardeners, a bright orange that his confused mind for a second identified as the orange jumpsuits of prison inmates.

But that had been a long time ago. Eons ago. Virdon shook his head and lengthened his stride; the path between the tanks was too narrow to give them a wide berth, and it would’ve looked suspicious if he turned around to move away now. 

To his surprise, it was them who pressed their backs to the walls and greeted him, similar to the reaction of the workers he had shared the elevator with. He flicked them a sideways glance as he pushed through, and noticed that they didn’t even make eye contact. It was a curious reaction, more fear than respect, and it made him uncomfortable. What reason did they have-

His uniform. Of course. He had knocked out the first person he’d met, and since the desert dragon had been hot on his heels at that time, the first person had been a guard, rushing to meet the security breach at the ventilation shaft. These workers were reacting to the color of his tunic, which not only gave him free passage, but a recognition that told him a lot about the hierarchy in this colony.

A fear-based hierarchy was never a good thing. 

_ I’m not going to judge them,  _ he sternly reminded himself as he pushed past them.  _ They survived under unimaginably dire circumstances. Who knows what kind of choices they had to make to ensure that survival? Form follows function, follows necessity. I’m just a stranger passing through, it’s not my place to interfere with their culture... and maybe I’m misinterpreting their reaction, anyway... _

He tried to put the encounter out of his mind and focused on his surroundings instead, trying to identify the hospital somewhere ahead of him. But the structures around him looked nothing like a field hospital, and the air was thick with the pungent smell of ammonia that made his throat hurt and his eyes water. Virdon squinted at the bulky rectangles towering over him — rows and rows of shallow trays stacked upon each other.

Those were air strippers, he suddenly realized; that explained the stench. They were stripping ammonia from waste water, probably to recover nitrogen and phosporus to make fertilizer for the level above him. It was a smart and thrifty strategy, but it didn’t explain why his gardeners were carting their injured colleague through these parts...

... and out of his sight. Virdon broke into a slow trot to catch up with them, hoping that his unusual speed wouldn’t draw the attention of one of his ‘fellow’ guards. He’d cough up a lung and point to the air strippers as way of explanation if that happened, and hope for the best. 

_ If only there was a way to communicate with these people. _ The more he saw of their colony, the more intrigued he was. He had so many questions... 

... for example, where they had taken Burke. 

The little group with their wheelbarrow came into sight again as Virdon rounded a tower of unknown purpose (it emitted heat, though — a chimney? Heat pipe?). They had spread out a bit, facing a giant metal gate; two orange-robed workers had joined them. 

Virdon paused, half hidden in the shadow of the tower. It seemed that they had reached their destination, but as much as he wanted to believe that the hospital was behind the lifting gate for security reasons, a sinking feeling in his gut told him otherwise. 

The huge metal gate slowly moved up, revealing an orange glow; a blast of heat met Virdon with such force that he wondered how the workers standing directly at its edge were able to withstand its fury. 

The wheelbarrow was pushed to the edge and tilted; the huge gate descended, cutting off the light and the roaring heat. The green-clad figures turned back to the path they had come from, and Virdon, his face still burning from the heat of the furnace, retreated further into the gap between the heat pipes. His heart was hammering in his chest.

This hadn’t been a funeral. There had been no ceremony, no prayers, not even a minute of silent farewell to their deceased colleague. Virdon could understand the cruel necessity to recycle  _ everything,  _ but these people had disposed of the man as if he was just another piece of garbage. 

If they disregarded a life so thoroughly, would they even try to save it beyond a certain point of injury? Had that gardener been dead, or just critically injured? 

What would they do to Burke, once he had lost his usefulness to them?

Virdon straightened with a new sense of urgency. At least this little tour had given him an important clue how to streamline his search — there was no need to comb through the entire level. Each of them was strictly organized by one function, so once he entered Medical, he’d immediately know that his target was close.

He only hoped these people believed in medical care in the first place.


	5. Chapter 5

There was a sound in the back of Burke’s mind. 

He hadn’t really been aware of it at first, and he couldn’t remember when he had started paying attention to it; it emerged as gradually as the dawn. He was floating down his usual trail through the woods, enjoying the early sunbeams lighting up the leaves, when he began to wonder where that beeping came from. It didn’t seem to have a natural cause.

The scenery dimmed out as the beeping grew louder. It reminded him of something... something faintly worrying, but also... familiar.

A heart rate monitor — that’s what it was! Burke remembered the sound from when he had been in the hospital as a kid. The hospital where his mom had worked as a nurse, and he’d been so disappointed that she hadn’t sat at his bed more often... but that was stupid, she had to work...

His head was still fuzzy. Why was he in a hospital  _ now? _

His body was slowly coming back into existence; he could feel the weight of his arms and legs and all the rest against the mattress; he seemed to weigh a ton. His head was still throbbing, so he didn’t feel like opening his eyes yet, but he could smell the sharp, fresh scent of rubbing alcohol. 

He had been injured... his arm. His arm had been cut... no, bitten... 

... by a dinosaur.

Which was fucking impossible. 

But now memories came rushing back — the escape through the desert, the dragon attacks (dragons, dinos, whatever... mutants!), and before that... apes.

Talking, gun-slinging apes. Apes on horseback. 

But this here — the beeping sound, the smell of disinfectant — this was  _ real.  _ Burke lay frozen, straining all his senses to affirm that he wasn’t hallucinating a hospital room around himself. But the scene remained stable, and solid, and suddenly a wild hope rose in his chest.

 _ Maybe I hallucinated all that  _ other  _ shit, about talking apes an’ dinosaurs! Maybe... maybe I’ve been in a coma since we crashed.  _

_ What a fucking nightmare! Next time, I’m not gonna stop halfway to dying! Do it right, or not at all... _

He opened his eyes.

The light was wrong, somehow — a dull, sulfuric yellow that reminded him of the  _ Icarus’  _ night lighting. But he had no idea how long he’d been in that coma, so maybe they just used this color everywhere now. The room was small, windowless, and sparse; as far as he could see, there wasn’t more in it than his bed and the monitor.

Which looked... weird. It had no screen, only a light that flashed with every beep, and the casing didn’t look as if it was made from plastic. The whole thing seemed to have been cobbled together in a garage or something. Burke felt a flash of adrenaline surge through his body —  _ what kind of hospital is this? Looks more like some backyard clinic in the wrong part of town... _

He struggled to sit up. His head protested with a bout of dizziness and the headache intensified, but he was too alarmed to lie down again. What had happened after he’d passed out? Who had found him and brought him here? And where was  _ here? _

_ And where the fuck is Al? Did they get him here, too? And Jonesy...  _ no. Jones had died while they’d still been in space...

He wouldn’t get the answers from the beeping monitor; time to discharge himself, and—

The IV line felt strange. Not like plastic, either. Burke stared at the flesh-colored tube that connected his arm to a glass bottle with a clear liquid hanging from an IV pole. He gingerly touched it; it also didn’t  _ feel _ like plastic. It felt like... skin? And he... couldn’t see a needle going into his arm. It looked as if the tube just went straight into his arm...

Heart hammering, Burke poked his finger into the tissue around the insertion point. Everything was soft, the tube slightly gummy, no hard parts anywhere.

_ They don’t actually leave a needle in your arm,  _ he frantically reminded himself.  _ Mom said it’s just a little plastic tube, a, a vein catheter... _

He’d see it if he pulled out the freakish IV line. It’d be somehow connected to it by something he couldn’t feel, but it would be there.

He gingerly tugged at the line; it didn’t come loose, and the skin around the insertion point stretched a bit, giving him a peculiar tactile sensation - as if there was no gap between it and the IV line, as if it had grown into his skin...

The little hairs on his arms rose at that thought, and Burke grabbed the line, panicked and disgusted and—

“Do not pull at the line!”

The air left his lungs in a rush that came out as an inarticulate cry of surprise, as Burke whipped his head around. 

A young woman holding a covered tray stood in the door, frowning at him. She wore some sort of nurse outfit he’d never seen before — a high-collared robe and a headdress that covered all of her hair. It made her look like a nun, except that the robe and scarf were of a light blue color. 

She slowly came closer and gently loosened his fist around the IV line. “You were very ill when the guardians brought you here. You still need the medicine in that bottle to flow directly into your body.” She smiled at him. “Do not worry — you will be fine soon; then we will take it out.”

Burke decided to ignore her odd way of speaking for now, and forced himself to smile back. “Sorry. It just... felt weird. As if it’s made from skin...”  _ Please tell me it’s not made from skin. _

“We grew it from your skin, yes,” the woman said, as if it was the most normal thing in the world, and Burke felt goosebumps shiver all over him again. “It cannot harm you,” the woman added after she’d glanced at his face. “There is no need to worry about it.”

Well, maybe they had made some technical breakthrough while he’d been out of commission. Everyone wanted to get away from plastic, after all. 

Damn, how long  _ had _ he been in that coma?

And  _ holy fucking shit they had made his arm sprout an IV line! _

He’d take care of that thing as soon as Nurse Baby Blue had left the premises. The very thought of this...  _ tentacle  _ being connected to him made his skin crawl, scientific progress be damned!

He desperately tried to direct his attention to something else. “Where am I?” 

The woman was fussing over him now, drawing down his eyelids, feeling down his throat — checking his lymph nodes, he remembered, the usual stuff —, then reached for a syringe that had been hidden under the cover of the tray. Burke stared at it with a sudden unease; the syringe was made from glass and metal, like something out of a museum, and it reminded him of something... but he couldn’t remember it right now. His head still felt fuzzy, his thoughts were slow and disconnected. 

“I need to draw a little bit of blood from your other arm,” the nurse explained. “Then we can examine it to see if the sickness is still in your body.”

Burke said nothing, just watched as she smoothly proceeded to take his blood. Her movements were quick and sure, as if she’d done this hundreds of times, and he allowed himself to relax a bit. At least she seemed to know what she was doing; she was even wearing gloves, but again, they were made of thin fabric, not latex. It was weird, as if he’d stumbled into a colony of eco-hippies. 

The way she had explained the procedure to him was also a bit weird, as if he was five years old and didn’t know what a septic fever was, but, well, she  _ had _ caught him trying to yank the IV line from his arm. Probably thought he was at the mental level of a five-year-old.

He remembered his question. “Where am I? I don’t remember much... I think I had a fever.”

The nurse nodded, her gaze still on the syringe. “You had blood poisoning. A little bit later, and we would not have been able to help you anymore.”

“So... where am I now? What is this here?” Burke was beginning to get a bit annoyed at her repeated evasion of his question. He watched her face for any signs of shiftiness; she had no eyebrows, he suddenly noticed, and no eyelashes. Was that why she’d covered her hair? Because she didn’t have any?

“You are in our city, in the hospital,” the woman said after a moment’s silence. She withdrew the needle from his arm and pressed a swab of fabric on the insertion point. “Hold this down for a moment so that the puncture stops bleeding.”

Burke dutifully took over and watched her capping the needle, then taking out a thermometer that looked as antiquated as the syringe. Probably still had mercury in it. 

Who were these people? Had they raided a museum to outfit their hospital?

“Okay...  _ which  _ city?” Something wasn’t right. Something wasn’t right, but his brain refused to draw the obvious conclusion.

She looked up at him with big eyes. “Our city. It is the only one here.”

Burke stared at her; then, with a sinking feeling in his stomach, he reached underneath his blanket and felt for his chest.

The scars were still there. The scars that the Dreaming Man had given to him and Virdon, the first vicious greeting card of this fucked-up world. And his conversation with Baby Blue here hadn't been in English, either. Funny that he only now noticed...

_ No coma. I’m still here. This is still real. _

_ Or maybe I’m still  _ in  _ that coma. _

If that was true, Burke wished someone would finally put a pillow on his face and deliver him from this nightmare.

“I need to take your temperature now,” he heard the nurse say as if from far away. “Open your mouth.”

* * *

When Burke woke up again, the room was lit with the same, dull yellow light as before; he was still hooked up on that strange monitor, its monotonous beeping the only sound in the otherwise silent room. 

He had no idea how long he’d slept. No idea if that sleep had been caused by his infection or by some drug that strange nurse had injected into his IV line; the uncertainty and his disorientation made him restless. 

Still no sign from Virdon; that was another thing he felt increasingly worried about. Was he even in the hospital, or was he still outside, hiding somewhere in the ruins?

No way to know, now. He was still chained to the bed by his organic IV line.

On the upside, the swelling and the pain in his arm were almost gone, and his bone-deep exhaustion had eased into a mild weariness. Whatever medicine they had given him aside from the sleeping drug had helped... it had probably saved his life. 

The last thought brought with it a surge of irrational anger. He wouldn’t be lying here with a new source of body horror for his nightmares sprouting from his arm, hell, they wouldn’t even have set a foot in these damn ruins (he’d  _ sworn  _ to himself that he’d never go near one of those damn old cities again!), if he hadn’t snapped and attacked that dino with nothing but his goddamn knife! 

_ An’ we wouldn’t have run into the damn things in the first place if I hadn’t shot those monkeys...  _ But that had been different. He hadn’t had a choice there. It had been a straightforward ‘us vs. them’ matter with the patrol, and the monkeys had started it. 

Only that hadn’t been his reasoning then. There had been no reasoning at all, that was the problem. He’d just... exploded. He’d seen their captain reach for his gun, and then fall from his horse; he hadn’t even realized he’d drawn his gun and shot the guy. 

_ Al was right. I’m outta control, I’m gonna get us both killed if I don’t stop going off like that. _

It was a new and depressing thought. Fighting had been the natural answer to growing up in a violent neighbourhood, and Burke had learned that his quick and brutal style made people think twice about starting trouble with him. It ensured that he had to fight less, and that had suited him; he had other interests that he wanted to pursue in peace. Once he had joined the Air Force, the only fights he had participated in, not counting the occasional bar brawl, had been the MA tournaments. But no matter if he fought in a dojo, a bar, or in some seedy back alley, he’d always been in control of his reactions.

And then he’d woken up on Monkey Island. Everything had gone to hell, and his self-control had joined the ride. The last time he’d been able to control a fight was when he had beaten up Ahta. Ironically, his reluctance back then to finish the guy off had enabled the little asshole to kill his girlfriend, and to rat them out to Urko...

He had probably lost it in Urko’s prison, Burke realized. His heartbeat had spiked, and his mouth had gone dry at the mere thought of the gorilla. Ever since he had escaped captivity, the sight of an armed ape somehow short-circuited his brain.

_ Dunno how to stop this. I’m not even  _ there  _ when it happens.  _

Burke didn’t really care if he got himself killed... at least not right at this moment... but he didn’t want to have Virdon’s life on his conscience. And since the incident with the patrol had demonstrated that not even Virdon was quick enough to stop him when he switched into killing mode, he had to find a way to stop himself...  _ before  _ he reached that point.

 _ I need to keep an eye on myself,  _ Burke decided.  _ Maybe I need to start meditating again, if I can still remember what my old sensei had me doing way back when...  _

He didn’t feel very enthusiastic about it — sitting still and doing nothing hadn’t been young Pete’s strongest suit, and he doubted that had changed — but he didn’t know what else to do.

_ Try being sneaky and diplomatic like Al, maybe. Like with that blue nurse... maybe I can get her to spill the beans on what this is and how to get out.  _

_ Or maybe I shouldn’t tip her off that I wanna bail... at least not until I know what she thinks of that idea.  _ He still didn’t know why these people had saved him, but the sum of his life experiences had made him wary of apparently unselfish altruism. Maybe they had plans for him, and maybe — probably — he wouldn’t like those plans. Better to suss it out before he made another blunder.

His thoughts circled back to Virdon - the nurse hadn’t mentioned him, but Virdon hadn’t shown up yet, either, which meant they hadn’t discovered him yet — either because he was staying below the radar, or incapacitated. And if he was injured, it was high time to get rid of those skin tubes and find him—

“You are awake - good!”

Burke looked up; the nurse in the blue habit had returned, carrying another tray. She smiled when he made a face at the sight. “No needles this time. I brought you food and water. You must be hungry by now - the fever broke some hours ago.”

Burke sat up and eyed the bowl; its contents looked like porridge, but he wasn’t sure he was hungry enough to eat gruel — it had been the apes’ favorite fodder for their human livestock. “How many hours? How long have I been here since you brought me down from the surface?”

Okay, so maybe he wasn’t that subtle. Yet. He’d get the hang of this.

Baby Blue smiled and set the tray down on his thighs. “Eat up, you need to replenish your strength. We will talk later.”

Burke forced the corners of his mouth to lift, and leaned back in his pillows. “’m not that hungry. Let’s talk now. Who’re you? What  _ is _ ... this? An underground city?” It was an educated guess — from what he remembered before he’d lost consciousness, there was no way anyone was living in the sun-scorched ruins of whatever city this had been, and since the river Al had hoped to find had run dry, a hidden oasis was also pretty unlikely. 

When the nurse didn’t correct him about his assumption, he pressed on. “Why underground? Why’d you save my life?”

The nurse laughed, more a sigh than a laugh, and sat down on the edge of his bed. “We saved you because you were in dire need of saving! That wound on your arm was badly infected, and if we had found you a little bit later, you would have been beyond saving. What were you doing up there? This place is surrounded by only desert - you must have been travelling for days to reach it.”

So he wasn’t that skilled at interrogation, but he recognized what she was doing — evading his questions, then turning around and starting to interrogate  _ him.  _ Fine with him; at least he knew  _ that _ side of the game.

“I was running away from the m... apes,” Burke said without hesitation. “You do know they’re the boss up there, don’t you?”

The nurse’s face went blank. “Yes, we do know of the Beasts,” she said after a moment. “They have taken over the surface; but they do not dare to seek us out here.”

“Yeah, they call this place ‘the Forbidden Zone’,” Burke nodded. “That’s why I ran that way, ‘cause I knew they wouldn’t come after me. Didn’t know about the dragons, though.”

“They must have thought you an especially tasty meal,” Baby Blue said dryly. “One of them even tried to follow you down here.”

Burke stared at her. “One of the... of the lizard things came down here?”

“There is no need to worry. It is dead now. What are those markings on your chest? Were they made by the Beasts, too? To what end? They look differently from the scars on your back.”

Burke grabbed the blanket with both hands to stop himself from reaching up to his chest. His face felt hot all of a sudden. “Jus’... jus’ decoration, I guess,” he murmured. “They didn’t ask my opinion about it.”

“No, I imagine they did not,” the nurse said softly. “Soon, it will not matter anymore.”

Burke narrowed his eyes. “What’s that mean?”

Baby Blue’s brow creased in obvious confusion. “Do you not want to lose the markings of the Beasts?”

“Yeah, but... why would you want to remove them for me? I mean, what’s in it for you?” 

The nurse smiled sadly, and patted his cheek before he could evade her touch. “You are not used to anyone doing good by you unselfishly, are you? Rest assured, we are not like the Beasts that kept you as their slave. You are our brother, even if you still bear the marks of the Upper Abode. But the Lord welcomes all humans, no matter where they were born.”

Burke felt his eyebrows rise against his will. “The  _ Lord?”  _

The nurse nodded solemnly. “The One Who Provides.” She indicated the room with a sweeping gesture. “All that you see here, even the light itself, comes from the Lord. The life that has been given back to you, is by His grace.” She returned her gaze to him, and smiled beatifically. “Soon, you will be brought before Him, and see His glory for yourself. You will see, and then you will understand.”

Burke nodded, but managed to keep his mouth shut. So the electric lights, and the heart rate monitor, and the medicine in the bottle came from the ‘Lord’.  _ Yeah, I understand alright - whoever remembers how to maintain your tech has built a religion around it. Wonder what they want from the rest of you in exchange... to ‘honor the Lord’.  _

Virdon had never talked about ‘The Lord’, but Virdon hadn’t mentioned his religion at all, most of the time; he had simply said his prayers, and on those occasions, Burke had backed off to let him do his thing. Now, though, he felt awkward.

Thankfully, the nurse didn’t seem to expect a response from him. She rose and gestured at his bowl. “Eat up, and rest a bit more. I will come back later to remove the tubes.”

Burke reached for the spoon; he had no intention to eat something that was probably laced with the same sleeping drug that had knocked him out before, but maybe stirring the spoon in it would get her to leave him alone. “Right. See you later then.” 

To his relief, she did leave then; Burke put the tray on the floor beside his bed, and dropped back into his pillows with a long, slow exhalation. 

The  _ Lord.  _ Just his luck to get rescued by a bunch of religious nutters who had probably survived that millennium because some prophet had locked himself away with his groupies when shit had hit the fan. Burke didn’t want to speculate what a thousand years of inbreeding and lack of newspapers had done to those guys’ gene pool and understanding of scripture. His thoughts wandered back to Virdon — _should’ve appreciated Al’s style of piety more while I still could._

 _ These  _ people were probably planning to baptize him, or something. The nurse’s cryptic hints had triggered all of Burke’s internal alarms.  _ They plan to keep me here, turn me into one of their Jesus freaks. _

He thoughtfully eyed the IV line.

_ Yeah, I’m really grateful they saved my life an’ all, but I’m not gonna wear a freakin’ robe an’ sing Kumbayah or whatever. I’ll see myself out... they’re probably mutants, anyway.  _

* * *

The nurse made true on her word and returned some time later to finally liberate him from the skin-tube that chained him to the IV pole. Burke, still fiercely determined to cultivate some diplomatic skills instead of knocking out the nurse and hightailing it, latched onto the only conversation topic they both agreed on.

“Yeah, the apes are real bastards,” he said, trying to watch what Nurse Blue was doing to his arm, and at the same time trying his best not to see anything. “That’s why I ran away. Didn’t plan to cross the desert, but those giant lizards turned up an’ started hunting... me.”

“They live at the foot of the mountains to the East,” Blue said absently, and tied off the organic IV line close to his skin. “They ususally do not come that near to our city.”

“Sorry ‘bout that,” Burke muttered, but his thoughts wandered back to Virdon. Had that last surviving critter gotten him in the end? Or had it tried to follow him down here? 

Burke firmly refused to believe in the first scenario. In the second one, Al was probably hiding somewhere, and that begged the question if he shouldn’t stay put instead of roaming the city. Virdon would search this colony systematically from top to bottom; he’d have a better chance of finding him if Burke stayed in his hospital bed.

But Blue had suggested to show him the city, probably as part of her sales pitch for her cult, and he wanted to keep on her good side for now; besides, he’d start chewing his own leg off if he had to stay in this tiny room just for one more hour.

“So, how long have you guys been here?” he asked, more to distract himself from Blue’s manipulation of the fleshy tube than out of any real interest. “Must’ve taken some time to build this thi... uh, don’t you take out the rest, too?”

The nurse had unceremoniously cut off the IV line above the string. “There is no ‘rest’, silly,” she said with a smile. “This is your own skin. This tubulus will soon dry and fall off, like an umbilical cord.”

“Right,” Burke forced out.  _ I’ll have a fucking belly button on my  _ arm _! Great! Who doesn’t need a second belly button? _

He resolved to carve this thing out as soon as he got his ANSA knife back.

Blue looked up and apparently saw the look of distress on his face. She patted his hand. “I know this looks like witchcraft,” she said. “But it is not, and it is nothing to fear. It is the  _ Technology  _ of the Lord.”

Burke blinked. 

They had been conversing in the apes’ language until now — Blue’s speech being much more careful and stiff than his own, but unlike him, she probably hadn’t been taught by a gorgeous jungle babe and a chimpanzee scientist — but  _ that _ word had been English.  _ Technology.  _ That had been English, unchanged from a thousand years ago.

The Technology of the Lord. Yeah, his earlier suspicion seemed to pan out: someone had turned engineering into a religion... well, more than engineers tended to do so anyway... maybe so that people wouldn’t try to reinterpret the manuals for the machines that kept their city going. It was a smart move, if a little risky. People who religiously kept to a book they were forbidden to alter or interpret differently tended to get a bit anal about it over the centuries. 

“I’d really like to learn more about your, uh, Lord,” he said. “He seems to be very... wise.”

Blue nodded solemnly. “And so much more. In time, you will be shown His Temple. But first I will show you a bit of our city — if you are still interested.”

“Yeah, sure am!” Burke eagerly threw back the covers. “Uh... where’d you put my clothes?”

Blue crinkled her nose in faint disgust. “We burned them. They were filthy and besides, you will get new robes anyway. For now, put these on.” She gestured to a bundle of white fabric sitting on the chair at the foot of his bed. “I will wait outside the door.”

The bundle turned out to be a loose shirt and pants that made Burke feel as if he had stepped into one of those ancient science fiction stories. Only the sandals didn’t fit the image. There was nothing heroic about sandals. 

The hospital was larger than he’d have thought, going by the tiny room he had woken up in. Blue led him down a maze of corridors that looked a lot like he remembered from his childhood, when he had waited for his mother to finish her shift. The fluorescent lights, the color-coded walls, wheeled hospital beds parked along those walls...

... For a moment, Burke felt dizzy, as if he was walking down a corridor in his own world, his own time. He touched the IV stubble on his arm;  _ nope, not in Kansas anymore, an’ don’t you forget it, Petey boy. _

He was relieved when they finally left the hospital and stepped ‘outside’, but that feeling of disorientation swiftly swept over him again: the plaza and its surrounding buildings were brightly lit, and the darkness behind the lights could as well be the night sky instead of solid rock. 

It was the air that betrayed the reality of his surroundings: although pleasantly cool after the furnace on the surface, it was stale and stagnant. Burke drew a deep breath and scrutinized his surroundings, searching for more details to counter his unmoored feeling, but his companion — guide? Handler? Chaperone?  _ Guard? —  _ started across the plaza immediately at a quick pace and he had to hurry to catch up with her. 

Nurse Blue — she still hadn’t offered her name, or asked his, and by now Burke felt awkward to ask — headed towards a pair of sliding doors at the far end of a long, narrow alley. Burke tried to identify the function of the buildings they were passing, but although the letters on the few signs above doorways or display windows were from his own alphabet, he couldn’t make sense of any of the words they spelled. Whatever language these people were speaking among themselves, it wasn’t English anymore.

Blue pushed a button in the wall, and the doors opened into a tiny cabin. Burke followed the nurse inside, and stared with a mixture of shock and exhilaration at another panel with a row of buttons at the other side of the sliding doors.

They had just stepped into an elevator. Burke swallowed hard to keep a traitorous exclamation down. As a poor, illiterate runaway slave, he wouldn’t know the first thing about elevators. 

Blue mistook the strangled sound he made for fear. “It is a means of travel,” she explained. “Like a basket on mighty cables, that is being pulled up or lowered down. It is completely safe. Do not be afraid.”

The elevator cab started to move with a jerk, and Burke extended an arm to steady himself against the wall. “’m not... not afraid,” he mumbled absently. There was more than one level to this city! And if this elevator gave access to all levels, there were seven of them, going by the number of buttons. 

_ Like the seven rings of hell. An’ who knows how big each one of them is? _

If Virdon had been smart, he’d have waited on the surface for him to find his own way out. But Burke knew his friend too well — there was no way Al would sit on his ass and wait for him to turn up eventually. No, he was down here as well,  _ somewhere.  _ Which meant that they could be searching for each other for all eternity, or until Virdon got arrested; Burke didn’t know which would be worse.

He didn’t have a chance to follow this depressing thought any further, because the doors slid open again, revealing another corridor that at first glance looked exactly like the one they had come from. They had only gone up one level; they were nowhere near the surface, there were still tons of rock above his head...

Burke fought a sudden burst of claustrophobia. 

“So, does anyone ever go up?” he blurted out. “I mean, you speak apeish, so-“

“No. Never,” Blue firmly cut him off. “The Upper Abode is the realm of the Beasts now, and our numbers are too small to ever hope to win it back. But they do not dare to disturb us. You are safe from them here.”

_ Sweet. I found the only one-way hole in the ground between here and California. _ Burke hoped his voice didn’t betray how much that thought was freaking him out. “But don’t you ever trade, or go up for scavenging, or, or raids?” 

“No.”

Blue’s voice warned him to drop the subject, but in the privacy of his mind, Burke clung to the fact that there had to be ways to leave this place. These people  _ had _ come up to the surface to collect him, so there had to be access points other than ventilation shafts. Either they had set up some security system that made it necessary to keep the ports... well, not exactly open, but  _ there,  _ or Blue was lying to him. She didn’t even trust him with her name, so why would she trust him with the key to the city? 

“This is where we go to rest, sleep, and recreate,” Blue’s voice cut into his thoughts. “It is not possible to show you everything,” she continued, slightly apologetically, “but when you are granted citizenship, you will be free to discover more of it on your own.”

“I can’t wait,” Burke said with his widest, most insincere smile. He had no intention to become one of these robed freaks, and was beginning to wonder why they were so eager to have him. It made him slightly itchy; so far, nothing good had ever come from anyone showing too much interest in him, especially not on this fucked-up world.

For now, he had to fake interest, although he soon admitted to himself that it wasn’t too difficult. The original builders had tried really hard to make the big plazas of their caves as spacious and bright as possible, with little quarters of buildings separated by meandering streets, their bends concealing the distances. As far as Burke could tell, there was no grid; side alleys branched off from wider streets, circled back, or ended in smaller, more intimate courtyards. It took him a while to realize what this reminded him of: the big city of the apes had a similar disorienting layout. Though whoever had designed this had probably called it ‘organic’. If there was an underlying structure to it, he couldn’t detect it, but he was dealing with sensory overload right now.

The nurse led him down the winding streets, passing a theater — an open space with rows of seats like a sports arena, only much smaller —, and something that looked like a shadow puppet theater, where abstract shapes danced in a complicated pattern on an oscillating screen, until they arrived at some kind of labyrinth: a maze of half-transparent screens that filled up another plaza in no discernible order, forming nooks and little intimate corners. A lot of people sat on the benches by themselves, reading; some small groups were quietly chatting among themselves, while others were playing board games. 

None of the games looked familiar to Burke, though some of them had checkered boards that reminded him of chess or go. Others involved triangular chips or cards, and all were played in silence. He would’ve liked to stay and watch for a bit, but Blue moved on without sparing so much as a glance for the players. 

They passed another group of people who were sitting in a circle with their eyes closed. Burke thought they were meditating, but then one of them suddenly smiled, and another one, three seats further to the left, started smiling, too. 

Their eyes  _ had _ been closed the whole time, and nobody had uttered a word, but Burke couldn’t shake the impression that those two had just shared a secret joke... or watched the same scene in their mind’s eye. 

He hurried on, trying to ignore the prickling sensation between his shoulderblades.

“Hey,” he said when he had caught up with Blue, “where’s the sports section?”

A small frown creased the nurse’s brow. “I do not understand.”

Now it was Burke’s turn to frown. “What, you mean you do no sports at all? No chasing after a ball, or climbing a wall, no exercise, just doing puzzles an’ shit all day? Seems a bit... lame.”

“We do not... chase after balls, no,” Blue said, and raised a disbelieving brow at him. “But of course we do exercise our bodies. It is necessary for maintaining our health, after all.”

But no sports for fun, apparently. One more reason not to stay any longer than he had to. Burke thoughtfully rubbed his face. “What kind of exercise?”

“I will show you.”

Blue led him away from the chess players (or whatever it was they were playing) and down another alley that opened, surprisingly, into some kind of park. The floor was covered with fine sand here, and potted plants were placed strategically around it; some of them were quite tall, almost little trees; they had feathery blue leaves that Burke hadn’t ever seen before. In fact, he wasn’t sure if they were leaves or flowers. Bright lamps were placed above them to provide them with the necessary light.

Before Burke could ask her about the trees, Blue pointed out a group of people engaged in a slow dance. “Here we exercise,” she said proudly. “The groups change with their shifts, so this place is always occupied.”

The movements reminded Burke vaguely of Tai Chi, or a mixture between Tai Chi and expressionist dancing, a continuous flowing motion that was strangely hypnotic. They were all moving in perfect unison, without anyone uttering any directions or visibly leading the motions, and for a second, they seemed to be one being with many protrusions, swaying softly in an invisible current, like an alien undersea creature.

“So, this is it?” Burke said, to distract himself from that unsettling impression. “It’s real slow. Don’t know if it’d be the right thing for  _ me.  _ Don’t you do any sports for fun?”

Blue sighed. “We do indulge in games for enjoyment. Did you not see the players and their boards back at—“

“No, I mean  _ physical  _ recreation for fun,” Burke interrupted her, only belatedly catching his own double entendre.

Luckily, it seemed to completely go over Blue’s head. “Vigorous physical exertion is... unnecessary,” she stated. Burke thought that she had actually wanted to use a different word, and had swerved away from it at the last moment. “But there is something that might appeal to you.”

Yet another trip down an alley and two ‘town squares’ further, Burke gaped at Blue’s concept of fun and games. “You guys play  _ mini golf?” _

“I do not know that word,” Blue replied stiffly. “Does this not meet your demand for ‘chasing after a ball’?”

“Yeah, but you said you don’t do that anyway...” Burke mumbled, still unable to tear his eyes away from the spectacle before him. He half expected to see some Hawaii shirts somewhere. 

Pretty soon, Blue dragged him away, maybe because she found his silent fascination with golfing freaks boring. Burke tried to remember what he had originally planned to find out on this trip — the bombardment with strange sights at every corner, and the need to keep up his pretense of being a dumb farm boy, had been pretty distracting.

As they walked on, he noticed some of the robed inhabitants stopping at cubicles that were randomly placed in the middle of the streets. Each of them moved on after a short moment, but whatever they were doing during their short pause wasn’t visible from the distance. Curious, Burke drew closer; Blue hesitated a moment before she followed him.

The cubus was massive; it had no visible doors on any side, but a round opening the size of his fist. A man — probably a man — stopped at the hole and pushed his arm in, shuddered and closed his eyes, retracted his arm, and left. The whole procedure had taken no more than ten seconds. Burke raised his brows, then stepped to the hole and peered inside. 

The only thing he saw was pitch-black nothingness. If he wanted to find out what had just happened, he’d have to follow the guy’s example and put his arm—

“Do not do that!”

Burke turned around and gave Blue a quizzical look. “Why not? What’s in there?”

The nurse eyed the circular nook and seemed to be at a loss for words for a moment. “It... provides sustenance for those of us who cannot use the food dispensary.”

“Huh.” Burke turned his head to appraise the opening once more. “But he didn’t take anything out...?”

“No, it was given to him directly.”

“You mean like a... an intr... like the stuff I got in my arm?” 

He’d almost given himself away. But whoa, he’d never have imagined finding automated drug booths here... or anywhere. 

“If you are hungry, you should have told me,” Blue said, ignoring his question. “There is a place where we can eat, not far from here. Come.” She turned away and marched down another alley without looking back.

With a last glance at the cube, Burke followed her. This was a mystery he probably wouldn’t have the time to solve. Maybe that was for the better.

They stopped at a cafeteria — Blue called it a ‘food dispensary’, which made him twitch, because it evoked images of drugs being hidden in the meals, but maybe that was only because he had just witnessed the guy down the street getting a shot. Burke figured that if Blue wanted to show him the rest of the town, she wouldn’t knock him out with drugged food; and he  _ was _ hungry, after having skipped the porridge earlier, so he accepted a bowl of vegetables with a spicy sauce, and a sweet pudding as dessert. The stew tasted deliciously, and after a moment, he lost all self-control and dug in. It didn’t stop his mind from churning.

So they were growing their own turnips. Were their fields also underground? They’d need a lot of lamps, in that case, and not the oil-fuelled kind. Too bad that he couldn’t ask his chaperone directly how they generated their electricity; he had to keep up his farmboy persona.

Burke shoved the last spoon of pudding in his mouth and squinted meaningfully at the lamp that illuminated their table. “How do you do that?” he asked, and pointed the spoon at the lamp. “No wood, no wax, how’s it burning for so long? And it doesn’t flicker like a flame, either.”

“It is the  _ Technology  _ of the Lord,” Blue said simply, and left it at that.

But Burke wasn’t ready to give up. “So it  _ is _ magic,” he intoned, trying to sound both awed and disgusted. He pushed against the table, as if ready to bolt.

“No, it is not,” Blue protested, slightly alarmed at his reaction. “It is completely natural.”

“Don’t see how  _ this  _ is natural!” Burke protested, shaking an accusing finger at the lamp. “It shouldn’t burn without fuel, not for so long, not  _ at all!” _

“It is the  _ Technology-“ _

“You say that word as if it’d explain everything, but it doesn’t. Magic, tech...cology, it’s all the same!” He jumped up and made a show of whipping his head around as if looking for an escape. From the other tables, people threw curious glances in his direction.

Blue jumped up, too, and laid a soothing hand on his arm. “Please,  _ calm  _ yourself. I assure you—“

Burke yanked his arm away. “No, no! My master was right, the desert is full of devils...”

The nurse pressed her lips together. “Enough! I will show you how it is done, I promise, but not now. Not today.”

She probably had to get permission for that unforseen excursion. Or the guys behind the curtain needed more time to hide the really juicy stuff. Or both, but in any case, no use bothering her further right now. He needed to keep up the pressure, but at the right dosage. 

Burke inhaled deeply and nodded. “Okay, fine, I... I’ll wait.”  _ But not too long,  _ his tone said. The frown appearing on Blue’s face told him she’d gotten the message.

The nurse nodded, echoing his gesture, and threw a sideways glance at the surrounding patrons that were watching their little drama with unabashed attention. “I promised you to show you our city today, so let us leave now. There is so much to see yet.”

Burke followed her out of the cafeteria like a lamb, and didn’t stage another panic attack for the rest of the tour. He’d give her a day or so to show her the power plant they were hiding somewhere down here, and if she didn’t...

... he’d think of something.


	6. Chapter 6

Burke closed the door and leaned against it for a moment to catch his breath. He was pretty sure that nobody had been following him down from the rec level, and he had done his best to look casual with a bag of hardtack under his shirt, but sucking your belly in and holding your breath for that long was worse than running for a mile. It also screwed up his forced casualness, but he couldn’t help it — stealing and stashing supplies for his escape under the noses of a crowd of strangers who might or might not keep an eye on him was really fucking with his nerves.

He drew another lungful of warm, stale air, and turned his head to press his ear against the door, listening for any footsteps coming down the corridor. Unlike the sliding doors of the elevators, all the other doors including this one were good, old-fashioned doors on hinges that you could block from the inside. The tech level these people had managed to preserve was amazing, but their use of the lowest tolerable tech whenever possible told Burke that their resources were limited. Pretty hard to make spare parts if the industry for them had gone to hell during the apocalypse.

The corridor outside was silent; he had chosen one that was pretty out of the way, and this storage room was more like a depot for broken but potentially recyclable equipment. A lot of unmarked boxes that looked mostly identical. What better place to stash your stuff than one where other stuff was already being stashed?

After his first excursion with Blue, Burke had been allowed to roam the hospital and rec levels on his own. He suspected that he was still under surveillance, and had done his best to play the wide-eyed country boy, which had at least the advantage that he could openly explore the ins and outs of both levels, and every piece of technology he came across. But he hadn’t consciously formed a plan for his escape until he had discovered the hardtack vending machine. 

The stuff looked and felt exactly like the dog biscuits his old neighbour had fed him as a kid. Burke hadn’t been eager to find out if it also tasted like it — he still remembered his relief when he found out that he wouldn’t have to put up with it in the Air Force. He was still looking for a vending machine that would spit out an MRE, but no luck so far. Considering that, according to Blue, these people didn’t venture to the surface, they probably had no need for them. Which begged of course the question what they needed the hardtack for. Maybe they used it as fuel — Burke remembered how he and Danny Short had once made a campfire out of old Carl’s biscuits. 

Burke pulled out a little metal box from its hiding place under the bottom shelf and emptied the spoils of his latest raid into it. He couldn’t fit all of them into the box; there was no way he’d be able to eat them all if he ever wanted to be able to take a dump again, not even if he had to hike all the way back to Chubla. 

He rubbed his face and admitted to himself that he had run out of reasons to delay his departure any longer. He had more than enough biscuits to eat now — or make fire with, or throw at the damn lizards —, he had stashed away an empty can for water, cobbled together a medikit, and stolen enough blankets to make a circus tent. He even had a crank light — he had discovered it when he had first explored this room, and had managed to repair it. The only things missing were some weapons and ammunition... and Virdon. 

He had held out longer than he felt comfortable, but the urge to make a decision had become almost unbearable. The point when whatever these people were planning for him would be put into action was getting closer, and by then, Burke didn’t want to be anywhere near this place anymore. But if he ran now, chances were that he’d miss Virdon in this maze, and would be on his way back to the Appalachians while his friend was still searching for him down here.  Leaving now felt  _ wrong,  _ after everything they had been through together. But the feeling of some undefined threat hanging over him, some sinister machinations already working in the shadows, was prickling up and down his spine all the time. 

He’d give it one more day. If Virdon was thinking logically about the situation, he’d already be on the hospital level — though Burke didn’t want to speculate how much longer they’d let him stay there. His arm was healing well, the pain was gone, his energy mostly back to normal. His sick leave was likely coming to an end soon, another reason to get the hell back to the surface, even if he hadn’t solved his weapons problem yet.

Burke exhaled heavily, forced the lid shut on his hardtack box, and shoved it back under the bottom shelf, out of sight. He rose and brushed off his knees, still mulling over his lack of guns and ammo. The armory wouldn’t be on this or the recreation level, but he had no idea what would happen if he tried to ride the elevator to a deeper level... maybe he could refit some of this junk here. His thoughts wandered back to his time in Gres’ bunker when he had tried to repair that laser gun, eager to impress Katlin—

“What are you doing in here?”

He didn’t flinch; he had half-expected for his guard dog to turn up every time he had stolen into the storage room, or hid another dozen biscuits under his shirt. Still, he had to fake surprise when he turned around to gape at Nurse Blue, who was not simply standing in the open door, but blocking it.

Yeah, she was a guard, as if he’d ever had a doubt about that.

“Jus’ looking at this stuff,” Burke said with a shrug and a careless wave at the shelves behind him. “You said you don’t use magic to make all these miracles, an’ I... thought maybe I could figure out how these...  _ machines,”  _ he pronounced the word carefully, as if it was alien to him, “how they do it. Looks like they’re all broken somehow — so I can maybe fiddle around with them a bit, since I can’t make it worse?” He gave her his best puppy-eyes look for good measure.

Blue’s expression told him that she didn’t buy his explanation for a second; her eyes roamed the shelves as if she could find proof of his lie, and Burke silently thanked Zana’s Mothers and Virdon’s God that he had already hidden his box before she had barged in. He did have another story ready in case anyone caught him with his shirt stuffed with edibles — he had been starved as a slave, and now was stashing food for  _ just in case,  _ some sort of obsessive-compulsive trauma response — but it wouldn’t hold together if he had to pull it out shortly after the story he had just fed to her. 

“This equipment is not suited for playing around,” Blue said finally. “It is intended for repair and reuse, but you are not qualified for repairing it. If you are so interested in the  _ Technology  _ of the Lord, you may be allowed to enroll in training with the engineers — on a different level than this one.  _ After _ you have been made a Brother.”

“Uh...,” Burke said nervously, “any update on when that will happen?” 

Blue stepped aside, indicating that it was time to leave his little sanctuary. “Soon. You will be alerted in time.” Her eyes were still scanning the shelves.

She’d be back to empty out every damn box in this room — and then she’d not only discover the hardtack, but also the water canteen, and the medikit, and the blankets... He hadn’t been able to find another suitable storage room, or he’d have made several stashes, and have a story ready for each of them; but as it was now, the combination of things in his one and only supply stash spelled his intentions loud and clear. He wouldn’t be able to fib his way out of this one. 

_ Well, fuck.  _ He’d have to distract her somehow, at least long enough to move his things somewhere else.

Burke slowly walked towards the door as if to obey the nurse’s orders, but stopped by her side. Her attention was still on the shelves; he put a hand on her jaw and gently turned her head until she faced him. Her skin was incredibly soft, but surprisingly cool. 

Blue stared up to him with huge eyes, clearly surprised by his sudden closeness. He couldn’t make out their color in the dim light; her pupils were wide, maybe also due to the weak lighting, or maybe from shock. Burke was pretty sure they weren’t dilated from arousal; Blue’s body was rigid, as if she was unsure what the hell he was trying to do here.

_ If you’re suprised now, what will you be in the next second? _

His gaze fell on her full, soft lips that were slightly parted, and the strength and suddenness of his own arousal at the sight made him freeze for a second. Well, it  _ had  _ been some time since he’d had any opportunity... some time, too long a time...

Blue hadn’t made any move to invite him for more, but then he  _ wanted _ to shock and unbalance her, take her mind off his only chance to escape this place. Burke leaned forward and pressed his lips on hers, used his whole body to push her against the doorframe, deepened the kiss—

Her mouth felt... strange. Too smooth, like... rubber, no... gooey, slick, like licking her pussy instead, which Burke had no objections against in principle, but that sensation didn’t belong up  _ here,  _ and—

His tongue slid across the roof of her mouth and across a ridge.

A ridge traversing her gum, and—

Blue pushed him away, hard, and Burke stumbled against the opposite doorpost, still reeling from that last sensation.

Then her palm hit his face with a resounding clap, and the burn distracted him for a moment from the slimy feeling on his tongue and the tingling along his spine. He gingerly rubbed his cheek and murmured an apology. 

The nurse glared at him. “That was most inappropriate behavior. I see now that the Beasts really keep you like animals. Go back to your room and do not come out again until someone arrives to take you to the food dispensary!” She turned abruptly and strode down the corridor at a speed just short of running. 

Burke kept rubbing his cheek as he stared after her. Then he ducked back into the storage room where he collected as much saliva as he could muster, and spit into the darkest corner of the room. He felt like throwing up. 

_ Mutants! Fucking mutants, I  _ knew  _ it!  _ He shuddered with disgust. Hell, for all he knew, they  _ were _ lizards underneath that human disguise!

He fell on his knees and began to pull out his escape gear from under the shelf. Blue would be back soon, probably with a whole brigade of guards in tow, and his only chance would be lost. He couldn’t wait any longer.

_ I’m sorry, Al, I really am. Wish I could’ve waited for you longer, or at least leave a message for you that I’ll go back to join Katlin and her Merry Men. But these suckers know English words, chances are they’d also understand that message. If you’re smart, you’ll stop looking for me an’ get the hell outta here, too. _

There was no way to hide the boxes and the bundle of blankets on his person. And he had no weapons, not even a knife. He’d have to rely on speed and strength, and that split-second of surprise — maybe he’d be able to take a guard down, take their weapon. 

Or maybe he could force them to shoot him. No way was he going to become a ‘Brother’. It probably meant being turned into a lizard-man.

* * *

A soft hum told Virdon that he probably hadn’t found Medical when he exited the elevator on the next-lower level. The sound reminded him of the industrial machinery he had just left behind, and although he was curious what kind of technology warranted its own level apart from the other machines, there simply wasn’t enough time for another excursion. But when he turned around to board the elevator car again, the doors had already closed, and didn’t reopen immediately when he pushed the call button.

Virdon remembered the excited shouts of the guards when they had found his rappelling gear and their knocked-out comrade, and decided that he didn’t want to wait for the doors to open again and spit out a white-clad crowd looking for him. He’d find a different ride to level four, and have a look in passing at whatever machinery was running in the cavern at the end of the corridor.

This corridor was dimly lit and mostly deserted, just like its counterparts on the other levels had been. For a construction this big, the colony was rather sparsely populated, which probably explained why its security hadn’t caught up with him yet. Virdon wondered if the settlers had a reproduction problem — a negative population growth rate could spell trouble for them some years down the line. If they didn’t have enough technicians for maintenance anymore...

He had reached a metal door at the end of the corridor, and his musings faded into the back of his mind as he strained his senses for any sign of trouble waiting for him on the other side. It was impossible to tell; the hum had become louder and was drowning all other sounds.

Virdon yanked the door open, one hand on his looted cattle prod. The hum swelled into a roar loud enough to muffle the sound of the door falling shut behind him. 

The gate had opened to a small metal platform about halfway up the wall which overlooked a row of huge installations. Their gears were hidden in metal casings; the only visible movement was the rapid rotation of their central columns.  Virdon stepped to the end of the platform and gripped the railing as he stared at the sight below. He was no engineer, but he immediately recognized the principle these machines exploited. 

_ So this is how they generate their electricity.  _

_ So this is where the river vanished to? _

Below him, three huge generators were churning, their rotors propelled by turbines that were either hidden in the same casing, or stationed in a separate turbine room — Virdon didn’t know enough about hydroelectric power plants to be sure about the details of their layout. He did know enough about the underlying physics to take a guess that the water that irrigated the plant shelves on the uppermost level came from a reservoir that was also feeding the turbines here.

It wasn’t 22 nd century-level technology, but it was a whole lot more progressive than anything the apes had come up with. And who knew what else but lightbulbs these people were powering with their electricity? Or what they were saving up the power  _ for? _

_ Computers, maybe? _

He shouldn’t get his hopes up; more importantly, he shouldn’t let this sight distract him from his mission, which was to find Burke and get back to the surface before security caught up with them. 

Virdon pounded his fist on the railing in frustration. He  _ had _ been right — there  _ were  _ pockets of advanced technology hidden on this world, pitiful remnants of past achievements, only a shadow to the glory of human ingenuity, yes, but maybe what had survived would be enough to send a call back home.

Warn them. Make a difference. Make  _ all  _ the difference. 

There really wasn’t time to find out, though. He had botched his entrance, his chance of a friendly encounter; if he approached them now, they’d treat him as a hostile infiltrator, and rightly so. And finding out what he needed to know by staying undercover would cost even more time. Virdon muttered a curse under his breath and began to climb down the metal stairs. He still had to find another elevator, as far away from the one he had used to ride down here, so he had to cross the machine hall anyway. 

Maybe he could steal a quick look at their control room. If they used analogue instruments, they wouldn’t be at the development level he needed, anyway. If they used digital displays...

He didn’t have time for this. He had to find Burke. This search had taken too long already.

Still, his step slowed as he passed the generators. He couldn’t help but wonder if the citizens of this colony had managed to build those machines themselves, or if they had scavenged them somewhere; even then, it was an impressive feat to transport several tons of steel down here. Virdon vaguely remembered that the Tennessee valley of olden times had been a veritable swamp that had only been tamed at the beginning of the 20 th century. They probably had built a few hydroelectric plants when they dammed up the river.

There was no chance those installations had survived a millenium. Without maintenance, they would’ve fallen apart over the centuries, the dams would’ve degraded, then broken, the water... vanished? Virdon still couldn’t believe it. Sure, the planet had heated up in the meantime; according to the apes, everything but the coastal regions was impassable desert. But still...

“Akguil lheeggis istda?” a sudden voice behind him shouted gibberish into his ear. Virdon spun around, adrenaline prickling under his skin. 

A person of undeterminable age stared at him, their expression less anxious and more wary than Virdon’s guard attire ususally warranted. His tunic and trousers were a dark gray, and for a moment, Virdon wondered if that meant the man somehow belonged to security, too — a different branch, a subdivision?

Then he remembered that he had seen those dark gray outfits on the other two levels, too. Unlike the colored uniforms that denoted a specialist, these grays didn’t seem to be bound to any level. Virdon’s gaze fell on the man’s hand. The man who had just asked him a question was holding a wrench, grabbing it so hard that the knuckles went white. 

A technician. That made sense — there were machines on every level, and they all required maintenance and occasional repairs. But this technician was holding his wrench like a weapon. Word must’ve gotten around that there was an intruder roaming the compound, posing as a guard.

Virdon felt his hand twitch, and forced himself not to reach for his weapon. They were standing in the middle of the machine hall; he couldn’t afford to catch the attention of even more people.

He smiled, shook his head, and gestured first to his ear, then to the roaring generator behind him. The technician repeated his question, louder but no more intelligible, and Virdon smiled and shrugged again, then, with a sudden strike of inspiration, gestured towards the glass-encased control room at the far end of the hall, halfway up the wall just like the platform he had stepped out on when he had entered. ‘It’s quieter in there so I can understand your question’, the gesture said, and to his relief, the tech nodded and waved him to go ahead. His expression hadn’t changed; he intended to herd Virdon to the control room, where he’d probably sound an alarm, and keep him in check with his wrench until security arrived.

Virdon nodded, still smiling, and quickly strode towards the metal stairs. Now he’d get to see whether they used the old meters with pointers on a scale, or digital displays, after all — the irony wasn’t lost on him. The more important question, though, was if they also had a bulky office desk where one could hide a knocked-out technician.

They had reached the glass door to the control room; a quick look told Virdon that nobody was inside — maybe the tech behind him had been on duty in here. It would explain why he had spotted him down in the machine hall. 

Virdon spun around without warning and smashed his fist into the man’s face. The technician stumbled back two steps of the stairs, missed the third one, and fell backwards onto the metal landing. His head hit the railing with an ominous crack, and he collapsed without a sound. Virdon jumped down on the landing, grabbed the man under the arms, and hurriedly dragged him back up the stairs and into the control room. 

They did have a bulky office desk, facing the glass front that overlooked the machine hall. A second desk stood at a ninety-degree angle to it, so that its occupant could keep an eye on the readouts of the giant switchboard that made up the rear wall. They were, in fact, digital readouts, Virdon noticed out of the corner of his eye as he dragged the limp body behind the first desk. Glowing red numbers, but he didn’t feel elated or triumphant about that fact.

The technician’s eyes were open, but they were glassy and unfocused. 

Virdon searched for a pulse, but couldn’t find one. He remembered the crack as the man hit the railing —  _ he must’ve broken his neck on it. _

_ That... I didn’t mean to kill him. _

_ Dammit! _

He sucked in a lungful of air, held it, then released it with an explosive sigh. Just his luck, to accidentally kill one of the people who could, by the looks of it, hold the key to reaching ANSA. But more than the tactical consequences of his blunder, the awful reality of having taken an innocent life gnawed on him. Collateral damage was inevitable in a war, and God, didn’t he know it — but Africa was only a faint memory, one that he almost never revisited, and contrary to Burke, he hadn’t declared a one-man war on the apes, much less on these people. This was just... it was a tragedy, a tragic accident, and he wished with aching intensity that he could take back that punch. 

After an agonizing minute, his pragmatism won out. No matter his chagrin, the reality was what it was, and it could become very unpleasant any moment. He had to exit this level immediately... but he couldn’t leave the body here. If security found a  _ dead  _ man, God only knew how they’d react. If they suspected that he had come to find Burke, they could very well use him as bait... or take their wrath out on him. 

There was an obvious solution to this problem. Virdon eyed the corpse with disdain as he tried to think of a less gruesome, less  _ desecrating _ one, but he came up empty. 

He called up the memory of the dead gardener’s ‘burial’ in the furnace on level two to distract himself from what he was going to do while he quickly stripped off the other’s clothes. He and the dead man were of the same height and build, and Virdon hastily exchanged his light gray security garments for the technician’s dark grays. While they wouldn’t endow him with the immunity of a guard, they’d give him something much better: the invisibility of a maintenance worker. 

Virdon threw a cautious look into the machine hall below him. It seemed to be empty for now. He didn’t feel like praying it should remain so — he didn’t feel he had the right to pray for any favors right now.

Climbing down the stairs with a dead man slung over his shoulder was a lot more difficult and slow than climbing it in preparation for that knock-out punch had been. Virdon broke into a slow jog as soon as he had reached the floor level, fervently hoping that nobody would enter the hall before he had vanished between the metal casings that held the generators and maybe also the turbines. 

He let the body slide to the floor when he found the first maintenance flap, but neither the first nor the second one he tried would open — they probably had security locks to prevent access while the parts inside were still moving. 

The third one yielded.  _ Whoever neglected to have that one repaired will be in for a dressing-down soon... _

The casing was indeed housing a turbine in addition to a generator. Virdon stared at the whirling inferno beneath him, trying not to feel like a sociopath for what he was about to do. 

He had to go back to retrieve the body. The hall was still empty... well, all machines were running smoothly, and someone  _ was _ supposedly here to keep an eye on the controls. Maybe his luck would hold a few moments longer. 

Some strange superstition made him feed the body into the opening head-first, as if its destruction would be more painful for it if its feet would meet the turbine blades first. The machine grabbed the body with such force that he almost fell in, too. 

In the blink of an eye, the body was gone. Virdon thought he’d hear bones crunch, but maybe it was his imagination, fuelled by the horror he felt — the roar of water was too loud, drowning out everything. 

What he didn’t imagine was the spray of red ejecting from the maintenance opening with centrifugal force, splattering his face and chest. Virdon swallowed heavily, futilely wiped his hand across his face, and threw the metal hatch shut. He leaned against the casing for a second, heart racing. 

He’d have to clean out his new uniform, or its promised invisibility factor would be moot. The only openly accessible water he knew of was back on level one; the water down here was all trapped in pipes. 

Virdon jogged back to the control room to retrieve his security uniform, but didn’t dare to stay to change clothes again. It seemed as if the turbine had shredded the unlucky technician’s body so thoroughly that nothing was blocking the water flow and alerting the crews that something was amiss here, but he didn’t want to test his luck. He’d change on the way to the next elevator and find a water source on a lower level. Security had to be swarming the upper levels by now, and his only chance was to stay ahead of the cordon.

Virdon grabbed a metal case someone had forgotten near one of the generators to complete his costume, and twisted the white pants-tunic-hat combination into a tight roll that he stuffed under his shirt. 

He couldn’t do anything about the shoes. They went the way of the dead technician.

Up the metal staircase at the far end of the machine hall, out the door and into another corridor. He had to turn abruptly and walk back in the direction he had come from to hide his blood-spattered front a few times, but the dim lighting and the bulky metal box he carried helped to make him blend in. The few technicians passing him mostly didn’t spare him a glance, although one or two shouted something that Virdon assumed was a greeting. They didn’t approach him when he responded with an absent wave of his hand. 

By the time he had found another elevator, he was sweating.  _ I’m getting too old for this.  _ For a moment, he wistfully thought of the flight instructor career that had been waiting for him after completing this last assignment. 

_ If I ever get home, I’ll retire properly. The only planes I’ll fly will be those toy drones Chris is so fond of... _

The doors seemed to take ages to respond. Virdon impatiently pushed the button again, despite his better knowledge. He threw a nervous glance over his shoulder. Repeatedly hitting that button would make him look impatient, desperate... suspicious.  The corridor was currently empty; if another group of technicians appeared, he’d have to casually walk away from the elevator — there was no way he could share a cab with anyone right now, not in his drenched uniform.   


He heard the swishing sound of the doors opening behind him and turned his head to see if the cab was occupied — another confrontation he wished to avoid, but didn’t have a choice to—

Burke stood in the open door, bags and boxes and what looked like a roll of blankets weighing him down.

They stared at each other for a moment, each of them too stunned to react.

Burke was the first to recover. “What the  _ hell  _ did you... no, don’t tell me. I don’t wanna know.” He pointedly stared at Virdon’s soiled uniform a moment longer, before he added, “You should wash that out before it dries. Dried blood’s a bitch to get out of your clothes... don’t ask me how I know.”

Virdon stepped into the elevator car, which forced Burke to retreat to the far side. “Shut up, you’re babbling.”

Burke grinned at him; his shoulders visibly relaxed. “What took you so long? I was ready to bail without you.”

Virdon nodded at his load. “That was my impression. Your confidence in me warms my heart.”

“You took your sweet time there, Al, shouldn’t have stopped at every corner to gape at the tourist attractions. These guys had plans for me, an’ I didn’t fancy staying around to see what they were.”

Virdon eyed the control panel. “I guess we’ll find out after all.”

Burke stared at him. “Whaddaya mean?”

Virdon levelly held his gaze, ignoring the dawning realization and rebellion he saw in the younger man’s face. “We’ll be staying for a bit. Do you know a place where I can hide for a while?”

* * *

It took Burke a moment to find his voice again. ”... whaddaya mean, we’ll be staying for a bit? I’m on my way outta here!”

Virdon leaned against the door, blocking the blades from closing, and threw a quick glance down the corridor he had come from. His face was drawn, the lines around his eyes and mouth deepened; tiny droplets of drying blood sprinkled his throat and cheek. “No, you’re not,” he said. “They have hydroelectric power, digital displays... I’m willing to bet they have computers, too.” He turned his head to stare at Burke. “There’s a good chance we won’t have to travel across half the continent, Pete. If we can warn ANSA from here—“

“After you cut the throat of one of their people?” Burke took a guess. “Yeah, they’ll be happy to help us. Al, I’ve been here for a while, an’ believe me, you don’t wanna stay. There’s something fishy about these guys, I think they’re mutants, too...”

“I’ve come into close contact with them,” Virdon said, and it was all Burke could do to suppress a howl of laughter at that understatement, “and they’re perfectly normal.”

“I came into even closer contact, and they’re not,” Burke insisted, and squirmed internally at the look Virdon gave him. “An’ hydroelecric power is nice, but it’s not the height of technological progress, they had that in the nineteenth century—“

“This isn’t up for discussion, Major,” Virdon cut him off, and Burke felt the heat rising in his throat and creep into his face.

_ Oh, so now it’s ‘Major’ again, yeah? ‘Pete’ when it suits you, ‘Major’ when it suits you, an’ I was an idiot to...  _

“Do you really think this is about my personal need to go home?” Virdon continued despite his earlier declaration. “I know we’re probably stuck here for all eternity! This isn’t about you or me, it’s about the fate of our country, of all mankind! It’s our damn  _ duty _ to warn ANSA, to give them the chance to prevent the downfall of our species, and we’re not going to skip any opportunities to send them that message just because we’re too afraid of the natives!”

Burke swallowed, his rage switching to embarrassment.  _ Of course the mission comes first. Yeah, I’m an idiot alright...  _ “So what’s your plan now?”

Virdon sighed, somewhat mollified. “I had planned to blend in better with that technician’s uniform — you’ve noticed that they’re wearing different colors depending on the level they’re working on —“

“Yeah, I’ve noticed. Gotta say, I don’t trust people who color-code their outfits.” 

Virdon ignored his quip. “There was an... unforseen incident.” He smiled ruefully at Burke’s laugh. “So you’re right, I need to stay out of sight for now. My other uniform is from security, but they’ve already discovered the man I knocked out to take it.”

Now Burke threw a glance down the corridor. “When did they discover it? They’re gonna be all over this place, now that they know there’s an intruder roaming their dream resort.”

Virdon shrugged. “I’ve no idea — I lost my sense of time down here. Soon after I entered, but I’ve been able to hide out on the level above this one for a while; I was looking for a hospital — I had optimistically assumed they'd taken you there instead of a prison cell. Their staffing seems to be stretched pretty thin, but I think my window of time is closing despite that; they’ll be at every elevator now, at least. Why do you think we’re not riding down to the next level?”

“If they really have those fancy monitoring stations, they’ll notice soon enough that one of the cars is hovering at level three with its doors open,” Burke commented.  _ And you really want to stir up this hornets’ nest some more, huh?  _

“I know. We don’t have much time.” Virdon followed his gaze, a nervous gesture that told Burke he wasn’t as unconcerned as he pretended to be. “But discovering the power plant reminded me... there have to be construction tunnels here, from the time this installation was built. They’re probably no longer in use, they have proper access tunnels now, but I doubt they filled up the old shafts. I can hide in one of them until we’ve solved my uniform problem.”

“We, huh? Fine, and where’s that construction tunnel of yours?”

Virdon leaned into the elevator car without moving away from the door, and peered up to the ceiling. Then he pointed at the escape hatch.

Burke followed his gaze. “It’ll be pitch black out there.”

“I trust that you stole a light when you assembled your escape gear.”

With a deep sigh, Burke pulled the crank light from his makeshift bag. “Here. It’s fully charged. Knock yourself out — I’m not gonna climb on that roof.” 

Virdon stepped into the car, and Burke felt an irrational surge of relief when the doors finally swished shut. “Help me up.”

A moment later, Virdon called down to him. “I think I can see an opening. Go up one level and stop the elevator when I tell you.”

“Fine.” Burke punched the button, and the car jerked upwards. “You know there’s an alarm sounding somewhere as soon as I hit the emergency stop button?”

“Can’t be helped. Tell them you were trying out the buttons.”

“Yeah, thanks,” Burke muttered. “Playing the idiot is my favorite thing.”

“Stop!”

Burke hit the emergency button with a bit more force than necessary. “Found your lair?”

“Looks good. Lots of dust and rubble. I bet nobody’s been here for centuries.” Virdon’s head appeared in the opening. “Give me your stuff — you can’t return with all that gear anyway, and I could use that blanket... and something to eat. You thought of taking some supplies, right?”

Burke handed him his bag of dog biscuits and his water canteen. “Might wanna soak them first — for all I know, they’re really a thousand years old. That stuff has no due date.”

The rest of his escape stash vanished in moments, along with his hopes and dreams of seeing the clear blue sky again. “So what’s the plan?” Burke asked when Virdon jumped back into the car and began to struggle out of his soiled uniform.

“Find me another tech uniform, or find a way to get this one cleaned,” Virdon panted and reached for the grubby white uniform he had hidden under the tech’s tunic. “Then I’ll join you. We’ll search the other levels for their command center — that’s the most probable place for their computers, if they have them. You’ve noticed that each level is dedicated to a single function for the colony?”

“Yeah — seems a bit dumb not to build in redundancies, but what do I know.” Burke crumpled up the blood-spattered tunic and wondered how he was supposed to hide it on his body — especially if there was a security detail waiting for him as soon as he left the car. “Look, I’m gonna find you a new uniform, just hide that shit under some rock, okay?”

“Right.” Virdon grabbed the balled-up fabric and chucked it through the escape hatch. “I hope that tunnel has a second exit somewhere, but when you return next time, you’ll have to do it the same way as now. Wait a day or two before you try — I don’t know if they’re still aware of these old tunnels, but they may take a look at the elevator shafts, for all we know.” 

“Then you better don’t wait at the mouth of that tunnel, or they’ll see you,” Burke commented. “I’ll use a crank light to morse ‘ANSA’ so you know it’s me. An’ Al... we can do this only once. They won’t believe me that I stopped this thing by accident a second time.”

“Just find me a new uniform.” Virdon eyed the escape hatch, ready to climb out a second time. Then he hesitated. “How’s your arm?”

“Better. They had me on IV fluids... I guess antibiotics an’ pain killers. Their medicine seems to be alright,” Burke admitted grudgingly. “I’m on pills now.”

Virdon nodded. “One more reason to stay a bit longer. It would be really bad if the infection flared up again once we’re in the desert. You keep taking your medicine, Pete. Once we’ve sent that signal to ANSA, we’ll leave immediately.”

_ And go where?  _ But the question was pointless, and they were running out of time. Burke gave Virdon another leg-up and tried not to think about the reception waiting for him at Medical. He counted another thirty seconds after the hatch had snapped closed before he pulled out the emergency stop button and selected level five.

The car shuddered, then began its slow descent. Burke stared at the metal wall before him, trying to collect himself.

Then he banged his fist against the wall. 

_ “Shit!” _


	7. Chapter 7

The air was cold — a startling sensation after the stale, warm air in the access tunnels. No waste heat from the machines, or from the people milling in the corridors, Virdon speculated. Maybe the colonists had repurposed those old tunnels as part of a ventilation network; it would explain why they hadn’t been filled up with concrete after the construction of the power plant had been completed. He remembered the tall structure he had glimpsed in the distance when they had entered the ruins on the surface. Maybe a central cooling tower? 

If only he’d had a better entrance. He itched to study the structure of this colony more closely, but as it was now, he wouldn’t get the chance. They’d be lucky to find a computer, even more lucky to use it, and incredibly lucky to make it back to the surface.

Virdon didn’t like the mountain of luck this mission demanded. Couldn’t be helped, though. They simply couldn’t afford to ignore this opportunity for contacting ANSA.

He held the lamp higher to get a better view of his surroundings. Dust mites danced in the cone of light;  rough-hewn walls with pockmark shadows emerged from the darkness. The floor was surprisingly free of debris, only covered with a bit of gravel that crunched under his soles as he slowly walked deeper into the tunnel. He couldn’t linger at its mouth — it wouldn’t be long before search teams would sweep the walls of the elevator shaft with search lights, or maybe even search the old abandoned tunnels themselves. In that case, it would be really fortuituous if this one wasn’t a dead end.

He had chosen the wrong tunnel, Virdon discovered not long after he’d made that wish. After a few more steps, it ended in a wall of debris that looked too volatile to climb around in; he didn’t care for a repeat experience of that cave-in in Atlanta. It had made a slight curve before it ended, at least, so he wouldn’t be visible to any search teams as long as they stayed in the elevator shaft. From what he had seen so far, security seemed to be terribly short-staffed, just like the technicians, so hopefully they wouldn’t have the capacity for a really in-depth search of every abandoned tunnel. A thousand years of inbreeding had probably wreaked havoc with the settlers’ fertility...

If all went to plan, he’d spare them this fate. Their ancestors would have different choices at their disposal, and never be forced to hide in a hole in the ground — no matter how amazing that hole was. 

Virdon reached for the data disc, clutching it like a talisman. Its curved edge dug into his fingers, a promise and a warning: even if he managed to reach ANSA, he wouldn’t go home. He and Burke would be stuck here... or maybe this timeline would simply cease to exist, replaced by a different future, one where man really made the journey to the stars.

Weariness swept over him all of a sudden, making every bone in his body ache and sending sharp stabs of pain down his right leg. He hadn’t slept for how long — two days? His sense of time had been completely confused by the artificial, never-changing light. These people had shift changes, but never some sort of ‘ship’s night’, at least not in their public spaces, and the darkness of the tunnel was luring him into sleep.

Virdon shook his head to clear it from the overwhelming drowsiness, and found a place between two bigger boulders to drop his — well, Burke’s — equipment and set up a provisional camp. A blanket to lie down on, a second one to cover him. A canteen with water, and a box with small, hard squares that Burke had claimed were some sort of biscuits. 

He tried one, but it was both hard and chewy, justifying all the old cardboard jokes, so he tried to soak it in a bit of water. The result was revoltingly spongy, and Virdon returned to determinedly chewing on the dry version instead. They tasted of nothing, but were filling despite their blandness, and he was hungry enough to force down half a dozen of them. The water from the canteen helped with the getting-down part.

By the time he was done, and the gnawing pain in his stomach had finally eased, his eyes were drooping shut, but the anticipation of search teams coming for him put him too much on edge to give in yet.

Instead he went through every item of Burke’s gear, counted the cardboard biscuits, and tried to plan his next move, but it all depended on Burke finding a new technician’s uniform for him and being able to return without getting caught, and he was so tired that his thoughts began to unravel and wander off. He vigorously rubbed his face to wake himself up, and reached for the metal case he had snatched up when he had fled the machine hall. He needed something tangible to anchor his attention.

The thing actually consisted of two parts — the rectangular metal case, and a short pipe connected to it by a coiled cord. He hadn’t paid any attention to the design before, only using it as a prop to give the impression of _being_ _at work_ to any casual observer, and had absently filed it away as some sort of measuring device, a voltmeter or something. But looking at it now, it became immediately obvious to him what it was.

A measuring device alright. Not a voltmeter, though.

A geiger counter.

The design was unmistakable. Still, Virdon stared at it for long moments to make sure his tired brain didn’t play any tricks on him. What did these people need a geiger counter for? After settling in this spot for a thousand years — or even only several hundred years, if they had built this site some time after mankind’s downfall — any background radiation severe enough to necessitate monitoring with a geiger counter would’ve already manifested in high cancer rates, and hydroelectricity didn’t generate radiation.

Maybe it was simply a historical artefact, kept around out of superstitious ignorance? But when he switched it on, the pointer moved a bit along the scale, and it started to emit the typical clicking sounds. The thing was fully operational, but the readout indicated only normal levels of background radiation. As reassuring as that was, it didn’t answer the question why he had found a geiger counter in the machine hall of a hydroelectric plant.

After futilely searching for some logical explanation, Virdon fell back on simple superstition. These people had preserved the English language for the sole purpose of reading and adhering to maintenance and safety regulations; maybe checking for radiation had been part of the construction phase for this settlement, to make sure the location was safe for building, and the practice had simply been kept long after its purpose had been forgotten. 

Some superstitious ritual, devoid of meaning. That had to be it.

He couldn’t fight off sleep any longer. Virdon switched off the counter, pulled the blanket tighter around his shoulders, and lay down on his side.  He was gone as soon as he closed his eyes.

* * *

Burke told himself that he was only hyperventilating to prepare his act for the police troup waiting for him on level five, but the truth was that he was ready to punch the wall, or somebody’s face — preferably Virdon’s. Taking deep breaths wasn’t half as calming as he’d been told, or maybe he was doing it wrong.

But when the doors opened, and he fell into the arms of a startled security officer, he was glad for the prickling numbness in his fingertips. He  _ had  _ to be glad for every little detail that made his story more convincing. 

_ “I’m sorry, I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m... it just  _ stopped,  _ an’ I didn’t  _ do  _ anything, an’ I was shouting for help, but nobody came, an’ I punched all the knobs an’ I’m sorry if I broke anything but I couldn’t  _ breathe...”

The man said something, but Burke didn’t understand a word — the officer didn’t seem to know apeish, or maybe he was just too surprised to switch languages. The tone was stern, but didn’t sound too accusing — more like,  _ what were you doing in there anyway, playing with the Technology Of The Lord (TM), son? _

Burke kept babbling the whole way back to the hospital anyway, carefully keeping a slightly hysterical note in his voice. It was harder than he’d have believed, and he was glad to have an excuse for falling silent when they finally reached their destination in the shape of a very aggravated looking Nurse Blue. 

She and the cop exchanged words in Funglish — Burke hadn’t yet decided if it meant ‘Future English’ or ‘Fucked-up English’ — and he silently translated from the expressions in their faces.

_ You really want to make this one a Brother? He seems kinda dumb. _

_ Yeah, he is, but look at him, he’s just too cute to leave alone! _

Blue didn’t comment on his cuteness when the guards had left; instead, she sized him up with an icy glare and ordered him back to his room. She was probably still pissed about the surprise kiss earlier. Burke hadn’t forgotten it, either. 

Better to get back on her good side fast. Burke hung his head. “Yes’m. I’m really sorry, ma’am. I didn’t mean to break anything, or... y’know... cause trouble.”

Blue was stomping down the corridor, ignoring him. Burke suppressed a sigh and rubbed his scalp, trying to find the magic words that would soften her stance. He needed an ally, now more than ever, even if she was one of the lizard people.

Blue stopped and turned so abruptly that he almost bumped into her. He caught himself at the last moment, swaying on the balls of his feet. 

“You were told to go back to your room. You were  _ not  _ allowed to take the elevator and leave the common area,” Blue snarled. “What  _ were _ you thinking?”

Burke nervously moistened his lips and gave her his sincerest puppy eyes. “I jus’... I was sorry for making you mad at me, an’ I... I jus’ needed some fresh air. An’, an’ see the sky! I  _ miss _ the sky,” and that last sentence was so true that it stabbed him with a sudden yearning that took his breath away.

Blue was shaking her head, and Burke realized that to her, the ‘Upper Abode’ had to be as horrible as this hole with its tons of rock above it was to him. He had to try a different angle.

“I jus’ wanted a quick look, I mean, where was I supposed to go? There’s only desert all around, an’ I have nothing — no food, no water...”  _ Yeah, because Al took it all to set up camp down here, the bastard.  _ “An’ then your magic basket jus’ stopped, an’ I... I panicked.”

Inspiration hit him. “It’s what my master did when I done something wrong — to punish me. He’d put me in a box, a really small box... like, I couldn’t stand in it, but I also couldn’t lie down to sleep, or even sit an’ stretch my legs...”

All of a sudden, he remembered that box in Urko’s prison. The box, and how he hadn’t been allowed to sleep, and the pain—

He felt clammy and nauseous all of a sudden, and something must’ve shown in his face, because Blue’s expression softened somewhat. “This is exactly why you are not allowed to use the elevators on your own,” she said. “You must have pushed more than one button at the same time, or the emergency... anyway,” she interrupted herself; didn’t want him to give clues how to operate the thing, Burke suspected. 

“You should have told me about your desire to go to the Upper Abode,” Blue continued, and Burke did his best to look even more chagrined. 

“I was ‘fraid you’re still mad at me,” he mumbled. Then he raised hopeful eyes at her. “You’d go up to the surface with me?”  _ Give me a chance to figure out our exit route? ‘Cause we’ll need it, I jus’ know we will. _

Blue’s eyes widened in disgust, and she vigorously shook her head, as if she wanted to shake off the mere suggestion. “Of course not! But I will show you our gardens — I have been told that there are even certain devices installed that let in the light of the sky. That should ease your mind.”

“Can we go right now?” Burke asked against his better judgment. But to his surprise, Blue nodded.

“It seems to be the best way to calm you down so that you will not cause another disruption,” she said, and started down the corridor, back to where they had come from. Burke, too startled to move for a moment, jogged after her.

They rode up in the same elevator he had used before, and he couldn’t help but wonder what Virdon was up to when they passed the abandoned tunnel between levels three and two. Probably poking around the debris, or building a spaceship from the boulders, so they could fly home as soon as they had found that mythic computer Blue’s people had hidden somewhere.

The air that hit him when they exited the elevator was surprisingly fresh, almost natural, as was the grin spreading on his face. Damn, he hadn’t realized how much being buried alive on those lower levels had gotten to him. 

Blue showed him around the gardens, which were mostly hydroponics. For once, his complete lack of farming knowledge didn’t get him into trouble, as a poor slave from a simian plantation wouldn’t have seen anything like this in his life, either.

Up here, the basic layout of a level was more clear than in the intentional maze of level four. It consisted of six interconnected main areas, from which ever smaller halls branched in a kind of fractal pattern. Not every major hall had hydroponics; to Burke’s utter and unfeigned surprise, the colonists had set up a real, honest-to-god orchard that almost looked like a park. They even kept bees to pollinate the trees. 

Another ‘orchard’ turned out to be a mulberry plantation to feed silkworms — and Burke suddenly realized that the cool, smooth fabric of his tunic and trousers, and probably every tunic and trouser in this colony, was pure silk. It was probably more efficient than keeping sheep or planting cotton, but it still struck him as decadent somehow.

One of the main areas seemed to be nothing but acres of bamboo, and for the first time, Burke wished he could communicate with these people directly, to ask them what they needed it for — were they still able to extract the lignin to make rayon? Did they have a chemical industry on level two? 

But he couldn’t ask Blue, as the nurse seemed to be as clueless as him, and the workers crept aside and discreetly kept their distance whenever they saw the two of them approaching. Apparently, the different colors didn’t mix, or maybe they didn’t want to get too close to a guy from the dreaded ‘Upper Abode’.

He stood under a sky light for far too long for Blue’s comfort, soaking up the sun with a blissful smile on his face, and silently calculated the distance to the ceiling. Too high to reach it without a rope — he wondered where Virdon had left his; he’d have to have used it when he had come after him, because Burke doubted that he had taken the elevator...

Blue softly cleared her throat, and Burke reluctantly opened his eyes. “Jus’ a bit longer, yeah?” he pleaded. “You could come join me, this spot’s really nice...”

This time, his warden didn’t let herself be charmed. “We really must leave now; it is time for you to take your medicine, and the workers have a lot of work to do and cannot accommodate visitors now...”

Burke remembered. “That dragon-thing that followed me, huh? Can I... can I see it?” He had no idea why he suddenly felt the need to make sure that the last of the predators that had almost killed him was dead; these people had no reason to lie to him... well, at least not about that.

As it turned out, the carcass had already been ‘recycled’, a term Burke decided not to ask about, but Blue did lead him to the site where the showdown had taken place. More workers than Burke had ever seen before in one spot were swarming the site, carrying away smashed plants and repairing shelves and pipes. “How did you kill it?” Burke wanted to know.

“The guardians shot it,” was the answer, and Burke filed the information away for later. So they had firearms; that meant they had an armory somewhere, too; probably on some of the lower levels — lower than Medical. Guns and ammunition... maybe even black powder in case they wanted to build a new tunnel...

He didn’t protest when Blue led him back to the elevator.

* * *

Virdon discovered that he couldn’t eat more than a dozen dog biscuits at a time, and had sorted his provisions into according piles. After four meals and two periods of exhausted sleep — which might or might not have equaled two days — he was ready to climb down the elevator shaft by himself and go looking for Burke. Knowing his younger companion, he had already gotten himself into trouble again and was awaiting trial in the colony’s brig...

He drew a deep breath and resisted the urge to go back to the elevator shaft again to listen for the approaching car. He had no way of reaching Burke, much less of telling him to hurry up, but God, he couldn’t wait much longer. There was nothing to do in this tunnel but to eat and sleep, and he had caught up on both now. The forced inactivity was driving him crazy.

The hum of the elevator car announced another drive-by, but this time, Virdon forced himself not to turn around. He’d give Burke another day... another period of rest, anyway... before he’d ride up to level one to clean himself up as far as possible, and try to find a fresh uniform—

Gravel crunched at the mouth of the tunnel, and Virdon spun around, reaching for his knife. 

“Al?” a subdued voice called out. “You in there? Tell me this was the right hole in the wall...”

“Pete!” Relieved, Virdon let go of the weapon. “What took you so long?” He quickly crossed the distance and grabbed Burke’s shoulders.

“I got eyes on me all the time, remember? Especially after that stunt you pulled with the elevator.” Burke didn’t return the gesture because he had his hands full, Virdon discovered.

Then he discovered something else. “Speaking of, where’s the elevator?”

“I let it run.” Burke dropped whatever he had been carrying to the ground. “Told you, they’re watching me. I managed to convince them that I got stuck by accident, ‘cause I’m a poor, unwashed slave who doesn’t know how to operate the magic basket, but that story only flies once. If I stopped the car again, they’d be all over this place in a second.”

“So you what, just jumped off?” Virdon asked, aghast.

“Yep.” He heared the tell-tale whine of a crank light being charged. “Opened the top hatch and climbed out, an’ jumped off when I came to your humble abode. Nobody’s suspecting a thing. They probably think I’m catching a bit of sunlight at level one.”

Virdon scratched his cheek, noticing the rasping sound the stubble made. “And how do you think you’ll get back? The next time the car passes, there will be people inside — you can’t just climb back in.”

“Yeah, that’s not our concern today.” The lamp was switched on, and Virdon squinted against the glare. He hadn’t used his own light again after he had oriented himself in the tunnel and marked off the opening with stones; he hadn’t wanted to risk detection.

“You hadn’t planned to stay in that hole, right, Al? I got you a new uniform... an’ some soap. No offence, but you reek. An’ while  _ I _ don’t mind, the people here don’t stink, so they’d notice.”

Virdon snatched the bar of soap from Burke’s hand, trying not to feel offended. “There wasn’t enough water in your canteen to take a bath, unfortunately.”

“Good thing I brought a bigger canister, then.”

Virdon shook his head as he reached for the thing. “How did you get  _ that _ into the elevator unnoticed?”

“I told the gardener I was trying to cultivate some seedlings in my room, an’ needed the water. Guy was very helpful, even if he didn’t understand a word I said. I even got him to give me some fertilizer for my plants...”

Virdon retreated into the darkness outside the cone of light and peeled out of his — admittedly grubby and smelly — uniform. It was pure bliss to get rid of all the sweat, blood, and grime, and he was grateful for Burke’s foresight, even if it came with some good-natured ribbing.

Burke wasn’t yet done with him. “You need a shave,” he said, and directed him to sit down on a boulder. “I couldn’t organize a mirror, so you’ll have to make do with me. Soap.”

It felt strange to have his face shaved by someone else, and Virdon had a hard time keeping his fingers from twitching every time the blade touched his skin for a new scrape; but Burke knew what he was doing, after all, he had to shave, too...

His wariness proved to be fully justified, though, when Burke put the blade to his eyebrows. “What the  _ hell _ are you—“

“Don’t know if you noticed, but these mutants don’t have any facial hair. You’d stick out like a sore thumb with those bushy eyebrows. Be glad I don’t pluck your lashes, too.”

“Be glad you didn’t try.” Even if Burke was right, this was clearly some revenge prank for not hightailing out of here when they had finally crossed paths again. But he held still as Burke scraped off his eyebrows, suddenly grateful he didn’t have a mirror. He had never thought of himself as vain, but he didn’t want to imagine what he must look like now.

Burke didn’t leave him in the dark about that. “Damn, you look weird,” he snorted. 

“Thanks for your help with that,” Virdon muttered. “I suppose you didn’t go to all this trouble just for your own entertainment?”

“No.” Burke sat down on the other boulder and switched off the light. “Aside from organizing a new uniform for you, I’ve also been looking for that mythical computer of yours. An’ it’s nowhere to be found on any of the levels we’ve covered so far, unless you count the switchboard on level three.”

“So it’s on the sixth level; I thought as much,” Virdon said. “It makes sense to hide it as far away from the perimeter of their colony as possible if they fear an attack by surface dwellers.”

“Or on the one below it,” Burke cautioned. “As far as I could see, there are seven levels all in all, like the seven rings of hell.”

“It’s nine rings,” Virdon said mildly, “and these people aren’t demons. They adapted to this way of living, but that doesn’t make them mutants.”

“Yeah, I’m not gonna argue with you about that now, we’ve got bigger fish to fry.” If Burke was annoyed about his insistence that the inhabitants of this underground city were perfectly normal humans, he didn’t let his tone betray him. “Access to level six is blocked for the plebs; the car doesn’t move if you punch that button. I guess you need clearance, or punch a combination of buttons to get there, but I haven’t found out which one it is, and I’m not gonna hang around until I do.”

Virdon had a hunch where this was going. “You can’t climb down the elevator shaft.”

“Watch me. Watch an’ learn, ‘cause you’re gonna do the same if you’re really serious about that computer.”

“You’ll break your neck! Here, let me show you why!” Virdon rose abruptly and switched on the hand light; he strode to the mouth of the tunnel and directed the beam at the opposite wall of the hoistway. “See that rail? That’s the guide rail for the elevator car. It’s the only protrusion in the shaft, it goes down the whole length of it, but it’s a, bolted to the wall, so you can’t grip it like a pole, and b, it’s greased to minimize friction between it and the roller guides of the car.”

He returned to where Burke was sitting and switched off the light. “There’s nothing else in that tunnel to hold on to, not to mention that we’d either be crushed or electrocuted if a car travels up or down the shaft while we’re in it.”

“You done?” Now Burke’s voice did sound annoyed. “I said nothing about sliding down a pole like a bag of potatoes. We’re not in goddamn PE anymore! In fact, I said nothing at all, because you didn’t give me the chance to even open my mouth.”

Virdon inhaled softly, held his breath for a moment, and exhaled just as gently. “Okay. You’re right, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have blown off at you like that. So what’s your plan?”

There was a moment of silence, as Burke probably did the same breathing exercise to get a grip on his anger. Then, “It goes like this: You wait for the elevator car to pass by this tunnel, step on top — same way I did to come here. Wait for people to leave the car, then enter the car through the top hatch. 

“You ride all the way down to the fifth level — that’s Medical, exit the car like normal; maybe walk away if people are waiting outside in the corridor. Once all’s clear, you come back an’ call the car, press the button for level one, but you don’t enter the car! You just wait for car to move up, then you force the doors open, which is really easy, it’s just a magnet keeping them together.

“An’ then you jus’ anchor your rope on the floor joist — that’s the horizontal plank right below the door. Rappel down one level to level six, pry open doors, exit. Boom, done.”

Virdon sat there in silence for a moment, trying to visualize the operation Burke had just described. Finally, he said, “You’re out of your mind. What if there are people waiting for the car on the other side of the doors?”

“It’s risky, I know...”

“It’s outright insane, not to mention incredibly stu... reckless!”

“If you’ve got a better idea, shoot!” Virdon heard gravel crunch as Burke jumped up and wandered deeper into the tunnel, too riled up to stay still. “I’ve been thinking long an’ hard about this, an’ there is no other way! We  _ have  _ to go down the shaft, an’ as you just explained to me as if I was five years old, we can’t use the guide rails. We don’t have enough rope to rappel from up here, so... yeah. Gimme your thoughts, Colonel, about your superior strategy. You gotta  _ have _ one, right? You had two days to think about one.”

“I didn’t have all the information for two days, so no, I haven’t had the time.” Virdon tried to keep his voice calm; it was no use escalating this argument. “I don’t have a better plan. That doesn’t mean I have to like this one.”

Burke sniffed, a sound Virdon didn’t quite know how to interpret. Irritation, probably. “Then we better get crackin’, or Blue will get suspicious if I’m not home for dinner. We’ll split up as soon as we’ve entered level six, an’... meet up here again in two days?” His lamp flared up, and he went back to the mouth of the tunnel. Virdon saw him bend down to pick up the rope that had survived his encounter with the sand dragon.

He joined Burke, still trying to think of a less suicidal way to reach their destination, but came up empty. “Sounds good to me... Blue?”

“My watchdog. Didn’t give me her name, so I made one up.” Burke didn’t elaborate further; they both heard the whining sound of an approaching cabin.

“Rock’n roll, Colonel,” Burke said, and lightly stepped on the car’s top as it passed. “Jus’ follow my lead.”

Virdon joined him, praying that just for once, Burke’s madcap approach to solving a problem would pay off.


	8. Chapter 8

After that first successful run down to level Six, Virdon had given the ANSA knife back to him— after a lot of hemming and hawing and fretting about blowing their cover, until Burke had simply snatched it away and declared that there was no chance in hell that he’d stay unarmed for a second longer. He wanted to be able to defend himself once shit hit the fan, and although he’d never have admitted it, the feel of the knife against his back, its weight and pressure against his skin, soothed his nerves. 

It also came in handy when he went on one of his unauthorized expeditions down to level Six.

A long, long time ago, in a place that now felt like a surreal, futuristic dream, Burke had made a promise to his knife to never again use it as a door stopper. Luckily, he had never promised not to use it as a door  _ opener, _ so he only felt a tiny flicker of guilt as he slid the blade into the gap between the elevator doors and forced them apart with a quick turn of his wrist; then he pushed the door blades further apart until he could squeeze through the opening. 

He threw a quick glance up the hoistway to make sure that the car was still on its upward climb, then crouched down, one hand still on the door, and felt for the rope that was now permanently attached to the joist below the entrance. This was the most dangerous part of the operation — if someone suddenly came down the corridor and saw him reaching into the empty elevator shaft, and startle him so he’d lose his balance and fall head-first into the shaft before he found the rope...

But so far, that hadn’t happened, and it didn’t happen this time, either. His hand found the rope, tugged at it to test its anchor, and found it still securely attached to the joist. Burke rose, the rope coiled around his hand, turned so that he faced the corridor now, and jumped into the elevator shaft. The door hissed shut, and pitch-black darkness closed around him.

The rope stretched taut, and his feet hit the wall, stabilizing him. Burke reached for the crank light tied to his waist, switched it on, and flicked the beam upwards, checking on the car. The walls of the shaft stretched upwards until they vanished into the the fuzzy darkness beyond the reach of the lamp.

All clear. Burke switched off the lamp and began his downward climb.

He had bandaged his hands so the rope wouldn’t scrape his palms raw — that would be difficult to explain to Blue, who had already expressed her disapproval with his frequent trips to level One. There wasn’t much she could bring up against Burke’s new-found enthusiasm for farming, though, and he was careful not to give her any ammunition. 

This was the job Virdon had assigned to him, after Burke had taught him how to circumvent the elevators — distract the natives with crazy hobbies. Draw attention to himself. Hell, become the mutants’ mascot, as far as he could tell. And he was doing his best to follow his orders, roaming levels One, Two, Four, and Five and making a spectacle of himself.  Some of the gardeners had already learned to high-five when they saw him. 

Nobody asked about the bags with fertilizer he carried away, probably because he made sure to also haul dozens of canisters with water to the elevators. They probably figured he’d find out soon enough that nothing would grow without sufficient light in his hospital room, and Burke didn’t bother trying to explain to them that the water was for Virdon, or mention the fertilizer to Virdon, for that matter.

Doing his rounds had given Burke a pretty good idea of the colony’s general layout. It was constructed in a hexagonal pattern that repeated itself in ever smaller scale towards the periphery on every level, although it was easiest to recognize on level One. He had only once ventured into the outermost fringes of that level, and had ended up in the farmers’ residential area — a small courtyard from which five short corridors led to the living quarters. He didn’t know if the workers of each level also permanently lived on their own levels — it was hard to imagine for levels Two and Three — but hadn’t bothered to find out. The important part was that he and Virdon now knew how many subsectors they had to search until they had completed a sweep of the whole level, and as far as he could tell, Virdon had only covered one of these subsectors on level Six so far.

They'd be faster if he'd been allowed to take over the other half of level Six, but Virdon had been very clear that he didn’t want to see his face down there. Since Burke couldn’t shave off his eyebrows without having Blue on his ass about it, he couldn’t blend in like Virdon, so yeah, the colonel had a point there.

But Virdon was fixated on finding that damn computer, and didn’t give a thought to, well... preparing for contingencies. Shit  _ would _ hit the fan. That was a given, and Burke intended to be ready when it happened. He might not be able to shave off his eyebrows, but he did wear a gray tech uniform when he went on his unauthorized excursions to level Six — he’d blend in at a distance, at least.

The whine of the descending car interrupted his musings. He estimated that he was halfway between levels Five and Six and — having climbed the shaft often enough by now that he could guess the distance of the car by sound — guessed that it was somewhere between levels Two and Three.

Burke focused on his grip, on the sandy surface of the wall against the soles of his feet, on the strain in his arms as he rapidly let himself down along the rope, and on the sound above him. The car was at level Four now; it fell silent, stopping at the rec level, as usual. It rarely went any further down than that, and so far, never below level Five. Burke suspected that security and whoever else worked down on level Six used elevators at the central hub of the colony. 

The whining came back as the car above him started moving again, getting louder as the car descended one more level. Burke picked up speed — better safe than sorry...

The car had to be at level Five now; it sounded close, too close for his comfort. Burke felt his palms begin to sweat under the cloth wrappings. The rope ended above the door frame of level Six; it was the only way to hide it from sight once the doors opened for regular passengers. 

The whine was too close now. The car hadn’t stopped at level Five, it was coming right at him!

_ Shitshitshitshitshit... _

Burke slackened his grip on the rope, sliding down now at breakneck speed, his feet losing contact with the wall. The rope hissed through his hands so fast that he felt his palms go hot from the friction even through the cloth wrapping; the whine from the car was ringing in his ears, telling him that it was now directly above him, ready to ram down on his skull and crush him to death.

And then the rope vanished, like a cheap magic trick, it was gone and he was groping empty air and falling, falling...

He hit the ground a second later with a grunt; he had been too terrified to breathe, he didn’t have any air in his lungs for a cry. The impact was so hard that it flashed into his heels like a hammer blow, buckling his knees, whipping through his spine, and sparking stars behind his eyes.

He was lying on his side. He was lying on his side on a concrete floor, with the car humming above his head.

This elevator shaft didn’t go down to the mysterious level Seven.

Burke slowly sat up and felt around for his crank light. His nose felt clogged, and a warm liquid was running down from it and into his mouth.

_ Aah, fuck. Gonna blend in perfectly with a bloody nose...  _ He tipped his head back to staunch the bleeding, hoping that he hadn’t already dripped the stuff on his stolen uniform.

Since he was looking up anway, he switched on the crank light to see how deep in shit he was this time.

Not too deep, if he could manage to reach the door joist from here. If all else failed, he’d have to shout for help and hope that people would hear him from level Five, since with his luck, it’d take some time until another car went all the way down to Six...

He’d try his luck with jumping, thanks.

The car jerked, then slowly retreated up the hoistway. Burke leaned his head against the wall, both from utter exhaustion, and to give his nosebleed time to stop.

When he was reasonably sure that the exertion wouldn’t trigger the bleeding again, he began his bid for the door. The joist wasn’t too far out of reach, but it was smooth metal without any ridge or protrusion to stop his fingers from slipping off, and it took Burke several attempts and sheer desperation before he managed to hold on to it and pull himself up far enough to slip his knife between the door blades and twist it to force them an inch apart. 

This time, he had to use it as a door stopper, grabbing the door blade with one hand before he could let go of the joist with the other hand and pull himself up, while at the same time forcing the door blades apart with his arm and shoulder. 

When he had finally crawled into the corridor, he was drenched with sweat. He didn’t care if anyone saw him now, if a patrol came thundering down the corridor to arrest him. This would be his last run. He already had everything they needed to get out of this pit, basically. He just wanted to stock up on their supplies.

For all he knew, this was the level that held Virdon’s computer. So far, Virdon hadn’t found it yet, and since Burke was under orders not to come here, he couldn’t point Virdon to it even if he found it. So he didn’t even try — on his very first run, the one he and Virdon had made together, Burke had found something much more interesting.

The armory was secured with an electronic lock, but these things had never stopped him; young Pete had learned how to pick locks at a young age, and hadn’t restricted himself to the old-fashioned mechanical models. 

Virdon hadn’t looked too thrilled when Burke had brought back some guns and handguns, but had admitted that one never knew when one would need a big stick to complement one’s soft talk. A handgun could be concealed under their tunics, even if a gun couldn’t, but who knew what they’d need the guns for; couldn’t hurt to have some ready just in case. But Burke suspected that his little raid had been the reason Virdon had ordered him to stay away from level Six from then on.

The thing about the guns was that they were the exact same model the apes used, which was a  _ tiny _ bit suspicious, considering Blue’s outspoken hostility towards the ‘Beasts of the Upper Abode’. If the guns and their ammunition hadn’t been stolen or raided from the apes, it meant that these people were trading with them, and  _ that _ was a hair-raising possibility Burke didn’t want to think too deeply about. But every time his eyes fell on his little stockpile, the question popped into his mind unbidden, as welcome as a nightmare about Urko.

There were other little things that didn’t add up, like the question what these guys needed the Geiger counter for that Virdon had snatched up while he was running from the crime scene on level Three. Hopefully they’d be out of here before any of these questions became too pressing. 

Today was Ammo Shopping Day, so Burke ignored the gun racks and the black powder barrels, though as always, he did wonder what their purpose was; were they still digging new tunnels? They barely had enough people to staff their industrial installations on level Two; Virdon had speculated that the colony seemed to have a population growth problem, which Burke was actually grateful for, since it meant that security was also severely understaffed. 

Maybe that’s why Blue was so eager to turn him into a ‘Brother’. Yet another breeding program — everyone on this fucked-up planet seemed only to care about his junk.

He opened a crate that held enough bullets to finish off Urko’s entire police force and began to stuff them into his bag. It was a good thing he had found another old construction tunnel for himself, or he’d have a hard time explaining to Virdon why their stockpile was seemingly growing all by itself—

“Drohp bag! Show hahnds!”

Burke froze. 

“Show hahnds, turn ah-round. Slow!”

Burke slowly and gently lowered the bag to the ground. Slowly raised his hands above his head, and slowly, slowly turned around. 

Three guards crowded the door; two blocked the doorway, the third one was kneeling.

All of them pointed their guns at his head.

“Guys,” Burke said after a moment, “you aren’t really gonna fire a gun in a store room full of black powder, right?”

One of the guards standing in the doorway waved his gun in a back-and-forth motion between his head and the floor. “You — down, kneel, slow!”

One last run. This had been his last run, dammit! He should’ve taken the hint when the car had almost crushed him. 

Burke kneeled, hands docilely above his head, and didn’t even flinch when they took his ANSA knife. His self-control only wavered when one of the guards began to recite his rights to him in perfect English.

He wondered when Virdon would realize that the shit had, finally, hit the fan.

* * *

Not for the first time, Virdon wondered if he shouldn’t declare this mission a failure and heed Burke’s pleas to leave. Every hour they spent down here increased the risk of discovery and capture, and if Laisa’s story had kernel of truth, the inhabitants of the White City would be more inclined to help him. 

But he was here now, the means of reaching home in tantalizing close reach, and he couldn’t bring himself to admit defeat. Not yet. What he had seen of the colony so far had convinced him that these people had to have some computer-based environmental controls, and the only compromise Virdon had been willing to make was not to try to pick any locks to areas that were off limits even to people who had clearance to access this level. He didn’t need their launch codes, he didn’t need access to their central control room — which would be full of people at any time, anyway. 

He only needed  _ a _ computer. A small work station in a small office out of the way. 

Which was why he was now turning to the periphery of Subsector Two — not that it was called that by anyone else but him. The first subsector had been less than fruitful, a long and disappointing row of corridors with electronically-locked doors. Virdon had been hesitant to use the small tool Burke had given him, not least because Burke had been awfully vague about how it worked. “You jus’ give it a little shake, like this,” he had said. “Ten seconds, tops, and the lock opens. Trust me.”

It wasn’t that Virdon didn’t trust his friend’s lock-picking skills; it was that he didn’t trust his own. Besides, who knew what silent alarms might still be triggered? So he had moved on, and by the looks of it, this sector was a lot more open to unauthorized visitors. Virdon passed a number of open doors, and even thought he caught a glimpse of a computer once or twice, but both times, the rooms were occupied, and he couldn’t slow down or stop to gawk if he didn’t want to draw attention to himself. So he walked on, not too fast, not too slow, with a purposeful air as if he had every right to being down here, although his heart was hammering in his chest with excitement.  _ So close. So close. _

He’d find a computer today. Out at the periphery, where corridors would get smaller and narrower, ending in doors that led to abandoned workstations; he could feel the certainty of it humming in every nerve of his body. 

He had to calm down; it would be a bitter irony if his excitement would give him away before it was justified. Virdon consciously turned his thoughts away from computers and tried to focus on something less arousing.

The compound’s fractal layout would actually have lent itself perfectly to build in redundancies, he thought, as he crossed a big hall full of monitors and blinking displays (environmental control, but too many people milling around, too many, look straight ahead, you have somewhere else to go and no time for a chat), and entered one of the smaller corridors leading outward. But for some reason, someone had decided at one point that instead of providing each level with several backups in case of an emergency, they’d give each subsector its own specialized function.

It wasn’t what he’d have done — if one subsector, or worse, a whole level faced some emergency, something like a fire or a chemical spill that forced Control to seal it off, it could cripple the whole level or even the whole colony. One had to wonder what the trade-off was for this hazardous decision. Maybe they simply lacked the personnel for redundancies. Maybe they were confident to deal with emergencies so quickly that a temporal loss of function wouldn’t be a problem. Maybe the huge, sealed gates that he’d seen at various locations led to emergency shelters. He’d probably never find out.

The tunnel ended in one of the transitional spaces that were essentially just hubs for the smaller corridors radiating from them. The bigger ones closer to the center had their own functionality — machine halls, control centers, loading stations — but the ones toward the periphery were too small for that, and essentially empty. Virdon knew that at the end of each of the corridors branching off, he’d find five terminal complexes; on this level, they’d hopefully be office rooms, each outfitted with a computer work station.

The first two were occupied; he hastily bowed out with an unintelligible mumble that conferred he had chosen the wrong door by mistake. 

The third one was empty. Virdon sneaked in, closed the door, and used Burke’s tool to lock it — mechanically, hoping it didn’t have an electronic component hidden inside that would log his action. He was willing to take that risk, though.

Because this room did have a computer. 

Virdon suddenly found he couldn’t move; his legs wouldn’t obey him. He stared at the monitor, the tower... it even had a keyboard. It looked as if it had been raided from a museum.  


But that was completely irrelevant if the thing still worked. If it read out the flight disc, if it downloaded the emergency buoy program, then he’d have a better idea about what exactly he’d need to send the signal back to ANSA. Maybe he wouldn’t have the opportunity to build a tunneling device here, not under these circumstances...

... but it would be a start. He’d have at least  _ something.  _ Something to keep him going, keep him hoping—

Virdon wiped the sweat from his upper lip and forced himself to take the three steps to the work station. The keyboard looked familiar — the same letters, the same layout. He switched on the computer and sighed a breath of relief when the words appearing on the screen were intelligible English.

Then he began to search for a drive that would accept his disc. It only now occured to him that he had never questioned his assumption that any surviving computer would still be compatible with the storage disc he had been carrying all this time. Before his blood pressure could shoot up with this new realization, though, the chassis of the optical disc drive slid out, ready to accept his disc.

With shaking hands, Virdon untied the knot of the leather strap that held the disc like a pendant around his neck, and fit it on the spindle. 

The chassis retreated into the casing, and began to emit the busy sounds of reading information off the disc. Virdon waited, the rushing sound in his ears almost drowning out the whirring of the cooling fan.

Finally, a message appeared on the screen. Virdon frowned — it was far too short, just a few words... 

ERROR: DEVICE NOT RECOGNIZED

Of... of course.

Of course. 

Scenes flashed uncontrollable in his mind’s eye — crawling through the wreck to dig for the flight disc, while Urko was already prowling them in the darkness of the jungle; that nightly excursion to the council house, still half-fainting from the death-simulating drug Zana had injected them with to save their lives; the desperate escape from pursuing patrols; being worked like an ox, shot, rented out, degraded... all the while carrying this thing through jungles and swamps, over miles and miles of dirt roads and mountain paths, losing it in a torrent along with his memory, only to get it back unexpectedly, carrying it farther, into the desert, into this underground settlement...

It was hilarious. It was comically obvious that the damn computer wouldn’t be able to recognize an ancient data disc — hell, back home they had switched to a new upgrade every six months, or so it had felt like—

He laughed. He couldn’t help it. He knelt in front of the desk, at eye level with the disc drive, and laughed, lips peeled back, baring his teeth in a hysterical snarl, until tears were streaming down his face, until his hoarse, hacking laughs quietened into sobs. 

_ Burke was right, I’m an idiot. _

_ I’m such an idiot.  _

There was no way he or Burke could get the computer to read the disc. It needed an IT guy or gal to get these two to communicate with each other. Jones could’ve done it, and for a fleeting moment, Virdon wondered what it would’ve been like if Jones had survived.

A lot more stressful, what with Jones’ record of treason and sabotage, and Burke’s temper, that much was certain.

Virdon wiped a rough hand across his face and retrieved the data disc. This wasn’t the time or place to indulge in irrelevant fantasies about a reality that had never materialized; he needed to regroup, to remove himself from his current exposed position, and think about an alternative strategy. 

When he opened the door, he almost collided with a technician — this one in the dark blue of level Six — and pushed past him before the other could recover from their surprise. The tech called out after him, but Virdon ignored him and hurried down the corridor, back to where ‘his’ elevator shaft led back to the safety of the abandoned construction tunnels. 

He’d need one of these indigo-clad IT techs soon, but considering the level of destruction and injury he had already inflicted on this colony, however unintentional, Virdon had no idea how to approach them. No matter how humbly he’d apologize for the damage done, they’d probably lock him up and put him on trial... he couldn’t fault them for it. But neither could he submit to it.

Maybe Burke had accumulated enough goodwill with these people that he could act as a liaison. Granted, his friend and fellow officer wasn’t the most diplomatic negotiator, but under the circumstances, he was his best... and only... choice. 

He was back in subsector Six-One now, his feet finding the way back without needing to engage the brain. Maybe that fact, and the momentary lull in his frantic strategizing when he had arrived at Burke as the only possible solution to his problem, combined in this moment to direct his attention at a gate he had already passed several times on his excursions without ever consciously noticing its marking. 

It was one of the electronically-locked gates that littered Six-One, which was the reason he had learned to ignore it. Now, however, Virdon stopped in his tracks and stared at the sign, his need to keep moving to escape detection forgotten. 

A black trefoil on yellow ground stared back at him. A radiation warning.

Virdon’s thoughts flicked to the Geiger counter sitting on top of his gear in his base camp. Its use had become clear now... but that opened a much more urgent question. What did these people hide behind that gate that was radioactive? And for what purpose? Surely they hadn’t built their city on a dumping ground for nuclear waste?

He reached for Burke’s lock pick; just in that moment, a pair of white-clad figures turned the corner at the far end of the two o’clock tunnel, and Virdon resumed his casual walk towards tunnel ahead of him. 

Maybe he’d come back later to investigate; on the other hand, no matter  _ what  _ they were hiding down here, it had sat inert for a thousand years. Maybe he shouldn’t rock the boat on more than one thing at a time.

The computer. That was his priority. Whatever else was behind those doors... he’d let sleeping dogs lie. If he brought this mission to success, none of it would matter anyway. If ANSA could warn the government, if they could prevent whatever had led to the downfall of mankind, then this reality would never happen. The apes would never ascend to rulership. The oppression, the enslavement, the... the degradation, the...

... none of it would happen. 

Everything would be wiped clean.

In the darkness of the elevator shaft, Virdon clung to that thought as fiercely as he clung to the rope leading up to level Five.

* * *

“No, I didn’t plan to run amok in the hospital... or anywhere. Look.” Burke leaned forward in his seat, but froze when the guard reached for her weapon. Slowly, he relaxed into the backrest again. “Look, I jus’ wanted to see what’s down there, ‘cause I’d already seen everything else on the upper levels. I was... bored. Curious.”  _ And mighty surprised that you’re all stocked up on Apeington Arms stuff. Care to tell me who’s your dealer? _

“You broke into a locked room,” his interrogator said. Her eyes and voice were icy. “You did not end up in our weapons storage vault by accident.”

Burke smiled his most disarming smile. “Well, almost  _ every  _ room down there is locked. Hard to see anything if you don’t open some doors.”

Now the guard leaned forward. “Those locks are  _ electronically _ secured.” She had to substitute the English word; apeish had no words for electricity or other advanced technology. “How did you manage to break in?” 

Burke glanced at his lock pick that was lying on the table between them. “Sorry, that’s a trade secret.”

“You are not helping your cause here.” The guard... police officer?... said without inflection. She seemed more bored than upset — something that Burke found slightly worrying. It suggested that these people had a protocol for incidents like this one, and he wasn’t keen on finding out how it ended.

He wondered if Virdon had caught on in the meantime that the mission had gone belly-up.

“I have to assume that you are a spy for the Beasts of the Upper Abode,” his interrogator continued. “The punishment for espionage is death.”

“I’m not a spy!” Burke protested.  _ Well, I am, but not for the damn monkeys.  _ “The apes almost beat me to death, I’ve got the scars to prove that, an’ I’d never help the bastards with anything!”

“They could have scarred you to make your story more believable.”

“Well—” Burke raked his hands through his hair. “Yeah, they could've, but they didn’t! You  _ know _ that the apes have basically enslaved every living human up there. Why the hell would I help them? They’re the enemy!”

“There are ways to secure someone’s cooperation,” the guard said. The look she shot him said,  _ I know you’re not as naive as you’re pretending to be.  _ “Threaten a loved one, promise some privileges, maybe even your freedom... You do not have to love them in order to do their work.”

“That’s some wild speculation,” Burke growled. This conversation was getting more pear-shaped by the minute. “You can’t prove any of it, an’ I can’t prove that none of it is true, so this is just a waste of time!”

“It is,” the guard agreed. ”And it is my time you are wasting. I suggest you start telling the truth, or we will proceed under the assumption that you  _ are _ working for our enemy, and sentence you accordingly.”

Burke stared at her, for a moment at a loss of words.  _ The truth, huh? And of course the truth is whatever  _ you _ want to hear. _

“Okay,” he said. “Okay. Truth is... truth is I wanted to steal those guns, an’ haul ass. Run away,” he explained at the woman’s blank stare. “Don’t know if you know, but there’s a resistance movement up there, fighting them apes. They’re hiding out in the Forbidden Zone, an’ do their raids from there. They can use some support. They can sure use those weapons. An’ you seemed to have a lot of them, so I thought you wouldn’t miss a few...”

“You are a member of the Resistance,” the guard said, and something in her voice made Burke wonder if Katlin’s movement had become a wild success, or if there was more than one group of rebel humans fighting the good fight.

_ Maybe there’s still hope for these people. Maybe not everyone has turned into a sheep. _

“A sympathizer,” he belatedly answered the guard’s question.

“Who is the leader of that resistance group you wanted to donate our weapons to?” Burke couldn’t tell if she believed him, or was stringing him along to see when he’d entangle himself in inconsistencies.

“Not gonna tell you,” he said in the same deadpan voice as the guard. “All that talk about the enemy beasts, but I noticed you use the same weapons as them, and it makes me wonder, you know?”

The guard stiffened. “We do  _ not _ cooperate with the beasts,” she declared.

Burke raised his brow. “But you trade with them? Or did you, uh, break into a locked weapons storage vault and steal those guns and ammo? ‘Cause that would make you real hypocrites for grilling me like that.”

The woman clenched her jaw, hopefully to suppress a smile, but it was hard to tell. 

Silence stretched for uncomfortable minutes. 

“Where is the other one hiding?” 

Burke congratulated himself for not flinching. “Don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You have a companion,” his interrogator said, her expression smooth again. “Do not deny it. He came after you and led one of the goannas into our gardens. One of our workers was killed by the creature.”

“Sorry to hear that,” Burke deadpanned, silently adding one dead gardener to whoever Virdon had done in on level Three.  _ You’re racking up quite a count, Al.  _ “But I was alone when I ran away. ‘Course, some other poor devil could’ve found your Paradise Island independently from me...”

The woman’s eyes narrowed, but before she could tell him exactly what she thought of his bullshit, the door behind him opened, and a pair of guards appeared.

“I will refer your case to the Committee,” the officer told him. “They had expressed an interest in you before; apparently, someone from Biological Maintenance had nominated you for Descent.” She gave him a quick once-over that said,  _ I cannot imagine why.  _ “They will decide about your future with our community right now.”

“Uh, wait!” Burke resisted the guard’s grip. “What is this Descent thing? Bl... my warden was always really vague about it when I asked her.”

The officer leaned back in her seat and raised her nonexistent brows at him. For the first time, Burke could detect an expression in her face — amusement. It did nothing to calm his nerves.

“It will solve the problem of whether you are a spy for the beasts or for their slaves,” she said. “And it will add another valuable contributor to the wellbeing of our sacred commune. An advantageous solution for all concerned.”

The guards dragged him out of the room, neither of them reacting to his desperate questions.

_ “What are you gonna  _ do _ to me?” _


	9. Chapter 9

Although Virdon considered himself a religious man, he had never questioned the validity of science and logic — in fact, he’d loved science since he was a boy, and had sought to instill the same love in his son. It didn’t mean that science determined the whole of existence, of course; in Virdon’s mind, science was a small box that fit into the greater box of God’s creation. There were things outside that box — things that science couldn’t examine, things that it would never be able to prove, but were nonetheless true and  _ there _ . 

Hunches were such a thing. But for all that he earnestly believed in the existence of God, and God’s ability to do miracles, for his own part Virdon preferred to stay inside the smaller box when it came to dealing with life’s challenges. As a rule, he didn’t follow hunches. He didn’t trust them — there was no way to determine a hunch’s validity beforehand. Carefully assembling the facts in his mind until they led to a logical conclusion made a better foundation for his actions — or in any case, one that he was more comfortable with.

But right now, the irrational certainty that Burke had gotten himself in trouble again was overwhelming. Pacing in the darkness of his tunnel, Virdon fought to either dispel the growing urgency to go down to level Five  _ right now  _ and find his friend, or to scrape up some facts that could support such a reckless action. 

_ Solid _ arguments. Not this gnawing, free-floating worry.

They had never made arrangements for an emergency — not because they had ignored the possibility that either of them could get discovered and arrested at any moment, but because there was simply no way to alert the other if it happened. The closest they had come to a warning system was to meet at regular intervals, but even that wasn’t failsafe: In the darkness of his hiding place, Virdon had no way to measure time, and Burke had to be careful not to be followed when he rode the elevator car’s top, and thus couldn’t guarantee to keep to their schedule. Not turning up at the agreed time didn’t mean anything.

Burke should’ve turned up hours ago.

If he’d only been held up by his warden, or had been turned away by a crowd waiting to enter ‘their’ elevator, he’d just have waited for the next opportunity and arrived a bit later. That he still hadn’t didn’t necessarily mean something had happened to him, but Virdon was running out of reasons for a delay that lasted this long.

He remembered the technician on level Six that he had collided with when he fled the small office where he had tried to read out the data disc. Then two guards had turned up when he had made his way back to the elevators, moving — coincidentally? — in his direction. Had security caught on to his unauthorized attempt to feed external data into the colony’s system?

They had caught on to his presence when they had detected the shredded rope in the elevator shaft — if not earlier, when their automated security system had knocked him out in the sewer. They had to assume that he and Burke belonged together — the probability of two outsiders arriving independently at the same time at this godforsaken place was just too low. The only question was why they hadn’t grilled Burke until now. Maybe they had waited for him to lead them to the second man inadvertantly. Maybe their laws required them to have actionable cause before arresting someone. And maybe his attempt to coax answers from the silver disc he wore had given them just that.

No, Alan Virdon didn’t follow hunches, as a rule. But today, he’d make an exception.

He chose two handguns from the pile of weapons Burke had deposited in his tunnel (more weapons than they could possibly carry, which said something about his friend’s mental state), and hid them under his tunic. There was a high chance that  _ if _ security had arrested Burke, they were counting on him to turn up in search of him, and he wanted to level the playing field a bit. True, the guards mostly wore some sort of cattle-prod weapon, but the mere existence of guns indicated that there were situations where they  _ were _ used.

Today could be such a situation. 

He chose to go directly to level Five. Burke had wondered about his extended stay in the hospital, even after he’d been taken off his medication, and Virdon hoped he’d be still there. This at least was information they had shared — Burke’s current place of residence was on level Five, subsector Two-Four by Virdon’s system. He wouldn’t lose precious time searching through every hospital, lab, and rehab center down there. Small graces...

The secret to blending in was to look as if you had business to do somewhere around the corner, and no time to lose getting there. Virdon strode into the waiting area of the hospital, head held high, and turned into the first corridor to his right without making eye contact with anyone. If this hospital was organized as the ones at home, or like Maltus’ clinic, supplies would be stored at the lower levels. Perhaps he could dress as some lowly orderly, and become even more invisible.

After five or six storerooms filled with medical supplies, one that seemed to be a cleaning and sterilization chamber, and one broom closet, he finally got lucky. The fresh tunic felt good; he just hoped he wasn’t accidentally dressing up as a surgeon. Virdon grabbed a tray and a handful of rolled-up bandages to complement his costume, and started making his round.

He repeated his search twice, unsure whether he had misremembered Burke’s description of his room’s location, or had lost his sense of direction inside the building. They had arbitrarily decided that whichever way the entrance faced was north. By that measure, Burke’s room was on the second floor of the eastern wing. Virdon searched both wings, just to be sure, and the third floor, too.

Burke was nowhere to be found. Worse, whichever his room had been had not only be cleared out, but was already housing a new occupant. For whatever reason, Burke’s time as an inpatient had ended.

Virdon kept walking — loitering in the halls was a sure way to draw attention to himself — but internally, he was momentarily frozen. The colony was huge, even if it was only sparsely populated; and he had no idea where to look for Burke now. If he  _ had _ been arrested, the logical place would be level Six; but if he had simply been moved out of the hospital because he had been deemed fully recovered, he could be anywhere, tied up in dealing with this new arrangement and therefore unable to meet with Virdon as planned...

For the second time today, Virdon listened to his hunch: nothing so benign was happening. The frequency of him passing by a cluster of guards had increased considerably over the past few days; they  _ were  _ on the prowl for him, and that didn’t bode well for Burke...

As if his thoughts had conjured them, a pair of light-gray uniforms appeared at the far end of the corridor. If Virdon had clung to any hopes that his assessment was hyperbolic, it died in that moment. Guards were inside a hospital — Burke’s hospital, in this wing, on this floor...

He casually turned into a side corridor, wishing for the lights overhead to be broken, to hide him in their shadows. The guards’ steps came closer, then stopped. Someone called out to him, and he couldn’t ignore the order, even if he didn’t understand the language. Its meaning was clear enough even so.

Virdon stopped and turned around, staring at two stern faces. 

The man who had ordered him to stop said something in the gibberish that had once been English, and Virdon realized with a sudden stab of panic that his cover was about to be blown. His hand felt for the knife that was hidden in the folds of his stolen robe. A knife wouldn’t make any noise...

The guard repeated his question, his tone more threatening now. Over his shoulder, Virdon saw two other robed figures approaching — nurses, perhaps, or even more guards; he couldn’t make out the color of their tunics. In any case, more people than he could silently eliminate.

_ I can’t let them capture me! _

Sweat was pouring down his back as he desperately tried to think of something to fool these people into believing that he was one of them. He tried to remember the dying gardener’s way of talking — he had almost understood him...  _ I be look da...  _ No. No, he couldn’t even begin to speculate how the words had changed, not to mention the atrocious grammar the man had used. 

Maybe he could pretend to be mute. Deaf, maybe. But he had no way of knowing if these people tolerated members who weren’t working to specifications, and now was not the time to find out.

On the other hand, their numbers were small enough to need everyone who could keep the colony working... maybe they allowed for a certain degree of dysfunction. A memory flashed up in his mind, of his brother trying to force out the words that seemed to be stuck in his throat.  _ Forgive me,  _ he silently apologized,  _ I don’t mean to mock you... I’m trying to save my life. And Pete’s, too, probably.  _ He drew a deep breath.

“I b... b.. b...  _ be!”  _ He stopped with a gasp, then started over again. “L... l... l... look...k...” His hand kneaded the fabric of his robe as if it had a mind of its own. Nate had done the same, Virdon remembered now — tensed up from head to toes while he was fighting that titanic struggle in his throat.

The guard and his companion were squinting at him as if they had no idea what was wrong with him. Virdon’s heart dropped; maybe they didn’t tolerate people with a speech impediment? They made no move to let him go with a shrug, or maybe with a warning not to trespass again. Instead, they were drawing closer, apparently fascinated by his performance.

He had to give them a reason to see him as nothing more than a harmless fool — see him as one of  _ them,  _ despite his funny way of talking. Make them laugh at him. The other children had laughed at Nate when he had choked on his words... but they had laughed even more when he had finally found a way to trick his brain to comply...

He couldn’t sing his words, like his brother had done for a while, or recite a poem — he didn’t know these people’s language, after all. But he  _ could  _ recite scripture — or what these people thought of as scripture.

Virdon drew a deep breath, relaxed his hand over his heart, and smiled at his captors. “Before initial use,” he intoned, “please read the operating instructions carefully... in order to avoid incorrect handling.”

The guard’s eyes widened, and his mouth went slack with surprise. His companion jerked back a bit, giving Virdon more space. It was hard to tell if they were awed, or even more suspicious now. 

There was only one way to find out. “Keep the instructions in a safe place,” Virdon advised them piously, “and pass them on to any subsequent user so the information is available at all times.”

“Now and forever,” his audience muttered. Virdon nodded, and smiled, and feverishly racked his memory for a fitting passage from his old lawn robot manual to send them on their way. 

“Return the unit to a recycling center,” he tried, but the guard just shook his head, laughed, and said something in their common language. Even if he managed to convince these people that he could only get out words in their holy ‘bohk chat’, Virdon realized, they would still expect him to understand their degraded English — and to explain himself, even if he had to take the words from one of their holy _Technical Manuals._

_ This won’t work. I’ll have to take them out... _

His chances of success were almost nonexistent; even if he managed to neutralize one or two of them, at least one of the newcomers would be able to scream alarm. 

It would buy him some time, at least — and if none of them survived to give a description of him...

_ “Attention all levels. Congregate at the temple at once for the Descent of a new Brother. Attention all levels. Congregate at the temple...” _

All at once, the guards’ stance relaxed; their gaze unfocused, and before Virdon’s unbelieving eyes, they turned and walked away from him. He stared after them, his hand cramping around the hilt of his knife.

Then he cautiously followed them. 

When he stepped outside the hospital, every single person in sight was walking towards the elevators. The guards and the other two nurses who had joined them had vanished into the stream of robed figures heading down the corridor. As Virdon looked on, he suddenly realized what made the whole spectacle so eerie: nobody talked. There was no excited chatter, no quiet conversations, only a look of subdued expectation on the faces close enough to him to read their expressions. 

Everyone was going to the temple. Literally  _ everyone, _ Virdon realized. 

He sheathed his knife and joined the crowd.  _ At least I know now where to find Pete. _

* * *

Whatever else could be said about level Seven, it was quite plushy, as far as Burke could see. The little chamber the guards had deposited him in reminded him of a theater’s dressing room — it even had an armchair sitting in front of a lighted mirror. He covertly scanned the room, but to his relief, found no make-up lying around. The room did exude a strange anticipatory vibe, though, and his unease didn’t subside when Blue finally joined him.

“Care to tell me what this is all about?” he said by way of greeting.

Blue stopped, visibly surprised. “I am to prepare you for your Descent ceremony. I was told that you knew this.”

“Yeah, the cops threw me out after I didn’t sign their pre-written confession.” And they’d worn a smug smile that had told Burke it hadn’t mattered either way. “Look, uh, you never really told me what that ceremony actually is about. What _happens_ there?” He’d be damned if he went along with any of it, but he had to play for time. And any piece of information could be useful.

Blue flicked a sideways glance at him that ramped up his alarm. “It will make you one of us,” she said, and reached for something lying on the seat of the armchair. She shook it out, and Burke saw that it was a robe — open at the front, like a bathrobe. 

She’d dance around the subject without ever giving him anything specific until he was dolled up and tied to the altar, Burke thought grimly. Probably didn’t want to spoil the big surprise. 

Well, he wasn’t interested in her ‘surprise’. This planet had hurled way too many surprises at him, none of them good.

“I don’t know how to tell you this,” he said, keeping an eye on the bathrobe, ”but I, ah, I reconsidered. I’m not gonna join your club. I mean,” he added quickly when he caught Blue’s incredulous stare, “what you have here is amazing! All that tekkolo...logy stuff, an’ the underground gardens, and the guys there were really nice, helped me with the seedlings an’ everything...”  _ an’ never asked what I needed a shitton of fertilizer for...  _ “but it’s not for me. I need the sky, and... I don’t know if the cops told you that, but I need to go back to help the resistance fight against them apes—“

“You were close to death when we found you,” Blue said indignantly, “if we had not helped you, you would have died. Then the resistance would have fought on without you, too. They do not need you.”

“You don’t need me, either. I’ll never learn that magic stuff of yours—“

“We will find things that you are able to handle—“

_ “What if I don’t  _ want _ to handle them?” _

The silence that followed his outburst was deafening. Before Blue could collect herself for a counterattack, Burke pressed on. 

“You  _ know _ why I ended up in this fucking wasteland? Because I ran away from apes who thought I was nothing but a piece of meat they could use however they saw fit! I’m  _ done _ being told where to go, what to do, what I’m good for, or how to be punished if I don’t obey! I ran away because I didn’t want to be a slave anymore, an’ I’m sure as hell won’t sign up to be a drone in your hive in exchange!”

He broke off abruptly; to his surprise, his hands were shaking. No idea where that had come from, he thought distantly, but at least he didn’t need to worry about the credibility of his performance this time; this had come from the bottom of his heart.

“You are a fool if you think that running into the desert will give you freedom!” Blue flung the robe back on the chair, where it drooped over the edge of the seat like a drugged-out starlet. “The only thing that awaits you there is death. Wherever life is still possible in the Upper Abode, you will find the beasts and their slaves, and you will have to obey their rules or perish. And even,” she raised her voice slightly when she saw him open his mouth to object, “and even if you would join your resistance, there would be people telling you  _ where to go and what to do _ in their fight against the beasts. And I am sure they would also punish you if you were as insolent as you are now!”

“Maybe,” Burke finally managed to interject, “but the difference is that I  _ chose _ to join them, lady. I didn’t choose to join your club! You dragged me down here—“

“To save your life!”

”... dragged me down here and  _ then _ decided I’d have to stay! I never had a say in that!” Now he was shouting, too. Blue’s face was as pale as ever, but her eyes were dark with anger.

He had them both riled up now — but he couldn’t let his anger distract him, too. Not this time. Burke drew a deep breath, both to calm himself, and to prepare for his next rant.

“We cannot let you return to the Upper Abode!” Blue took a step towards him, and although that was exactly what Burke wanted her to do, he retreated a few steps, moving backwards towards the chair. That robe was the only thing he could use to tie her up. One of the sleeves would have to serve as a gag.

Blue advanced towards him, eyes flashing. “We  _ know _ that you are still a servant to the Beasts, you and your companion, and we cannot risk detection. We are a peaceful people, but we must protect ourselves! And you should be grateful that you were chosen for Descent, because there  _ were _ debates about your suitability—”

“Who in their right mind would want to help the damn monkeys?” Burke protested, retreating another step. “I already told your security that I’m gonna join the resistance, an’ if you had a shred of honor, you’d  _ help _ me, and them! We’re all humans, we should unite an’ fight against them together — an’ we’d have a much better chance if we had your technology. The apes have nothing that compares to it!”

They both paused; Burke was as surprised by his sudden inspiration as Blue seemed to be. He had never really thought about finding allies for Katlin’s motley crew of freedom fighters — probably because he had always dismissed Virdon’s belief in survivors who had preserved some of mankind’s technological achievements. It was all Indians vs Cowboys here, and seeing how that had turned out back in the 18 th century, he’d never expected a happy ending for himself. But it would be better than living out his life as a slave. 

Only now there was a third option.

But then Blue shook her head, and Burke dropped the notion.  _ Should’ve known she’d balk. They survived this long by hiding like rabbits, won’t change their winning strategy now. Not for me, not for anyone. _

“I want to believe you,” Blue was saying, and Burke jerked back when she was suddenly by his side. “But I cannot defy the Committee.” 

A hot pain flashed up in his left butt cheek, followed by a spreading numbness. “They say you are a tool of the Beasts who seek to find and destroy us; only when you are made a Brother will we know what you know, and know where to find your accomplice...” 

He spun around and grabbed for her wrist, but she easily evaded his grasp. The numbness was now in his mouth; she had injected him with something, Burke realized, some drug, she had gotten to him before he had managed getting to her.  _ That distraction worked jus’ fine,  _ he thought groggily,  _ I distracted myself real good... _

The room was getting darker and tilting sideways, Blue’s hands were on his arms, catching him—

* * *

For the first time since he had entered this strange underground world, Virdon was absolutely certain that he was safe from discovery; the people around him appeared completely entranced and didn’t pay him any heed as they moved with measured steps towards the central elevator. 

And yet, moving in their midst with the same measured steps, Virdon had never before felt so exposed. He was cold, his skin covered with goosebumps, a dreamer who had made the grave mistake of waking up inside his nightmare. 

It had happened to him often as a boy, and he’d always known somehow that the creatures of his dreams could sense it when he became conscious — that he was only safe as long as he was sleepwalking through their world. You could only escape those demons by shaking yourself truly awake.

But this dream had refused to end since they had crashed their ship in it.

Whatever was happening with these people was... unnatural. Virdon had no idea if they were hypnotized or simply brainwashed, but the uniform response to the summons, and the eerie silence in which it was happening, had him thoroughly spooked.

And Burke was down there somewhere, in the midst of whatever this was. Virdon kept facing straight ahead, his eyes staring at nothing in particular, and silently prayed that his friend was keeping his cool for once. 

_ I forced him to stay. I provided him the opportunity to get himself into trouble. _

For a split-second, he admitted to himself that whenever it came to the data disc and its beguiling promise to show him the way home, he left the comforting box of reason and logic, and plunged head-first into an irrational obsession that made him just as reckless as Burke, endangering not just himself, but everyone around him. But he couldn’t afford this self-examination now — he had to focus on getting Burke out of this trap. 

He had memorized the layout of the levels and their connecting tunnels and elevators, but of course he couldn’t know where the guards would be stationed. There simply hadn’t been enough time to do a thorough reconnaissance, though it was probably safe to say that every available man and woman would be on alert, ready to finally catch the second intruder...

Nor did he have any knowledge of their security measures along their escape route, but Virdon guessed that they were at least surveilling their air vents, as those were the most obvious access points for invaders. 

Well, they would find out soon enough, provided he could extract Burke from his captors and the enraptured masses that were squeezing into the central elevator now. Bodies were pressing into Virdon from all sides, and for endless minutes, all his calculations left him as he focused on melting into the crowd, becoming indistinguishable for any searching eye, just in case.

He hung back when the elevator doors opened again, letting the others push past him. Judging by the length of their ride, this level was down at least twice as deep as the last one; the air was warm and stifling here, and would get worse quickly, with the number of people pouring out from the elevators.

They had arrived at a wide plaza again, but this time, Virdon couldn’t detect any tunnels opening in the walls of the giant cave; this seemed to be a dead end. Electric lights hung in a grid far overhead, bathing the scene in shadowless glare. 

At the far end of the square, the opposite wall was decorated with rows of giant columns like a Greek temple, which flanked an equally gigantic gate whose doors were currently thrown open. As Virdon drew closer with the rest of the crowd, he saw that the inscription above the gate were indeed Greek letters: Alpha and Omega. 

_ I am the Beginning and the End, the First and the Last.  _ Maybe they had retained a memory of the old religion after all? But another hunch told Virdon that whatever they had preserved probably wouldn’t be to his liking.

He remembered the gardener in the uppermost level, mistaking him for a ‘bohk man’ — the dying man... person... had probably meant to call him a ‘book man’... a priest. One who read from the technical manual, praying for intercession from... a machine?  _ The  _ machine? Maybe the hydroelectric plant, considering it generated the energy that kept this place functional?

Or did they pray to the spirit that they believed was animating their machines? And what would that spirit demand from its followers? 

Virdon craned his neck to peek above the heads of the people before him as they entered the gate, but Burke was still nowhere to be seen. They probably kept him in a back room, and would only bring him out at the climax of whatever ritual they had planned. Virdon tried not to be concerned about this — at least it would give him time to do formulate a rescue plan. 

The interior of the building immediately reminded him of a church, with rows of benches facing a central platform on which something like an altar was installed; the layout was circular, though, with the platform lowered so that everyone was looking down on it. On second thought, it reminded him more of an auditorium. Another nod to the scientific beginnings of their faith? Or a sign that they had turned away from the world above, and were now seeking protection from the lightless depths inside the earth? They had called their ceremony a ‘descent’, after all.

For a second, Virdon felt an aching desire to see the blue sky, wide open, filled with light. Then he returned his attention to the congregation.

The community was surprisingly small — or there were additional chambers of worship somewhere else — but Virdon estimated that no more than four hundred people were filling the benches. He carefully drifted to the side, easing himself out of the stream of people squeezing into the rows, until he found a place at the far back, with only the outer wall behind him. The last thing he needed was to be trapped somewhere in the middle of one of these benches, with fifty people sitting to either side of him. 

Virdon leaned against the wall and slightly turned his head to survey his immediate surroundings. He was standing in the shadow of a column, his blue tunic hopefully dissolving his silhouette even more in the dim light. He could see other people lining the walls — probably guards. Probably waiting for him to show himself when Burke would finally appear. 

Virdon silently counted the bullets he had at his disposal, and concluded that their chances to get out of this place alive were not good. He didn’t have enough bullets in the guns’ chambers to shoot his way through... he hadn’t expected to have to face down the whole colony at once.

People were still filing through the gate and finding a place to sit on the benches, the rustling of their robes the only sound in the eerie silence. Their sheer number alone would be a problem, even without the presence of armed guards. They could block the exits, or simply squash him and Burke if there was a commotion at the center. Whatever diversion he would fabricate, it had to be something that would distract everyone and make them run for the exits. 

If only he had any idea what kind of diversion would make them run. Firing his gun would probably just incite a panic — not ideal. 

A sudden silence made him freeze. Had he been discovered?

Then a deep hum rose all around him, making his heart race and the little hairs on his arms stand on end. Every robed figure rose at once, raising their voice in wordless exultation. Virdon craned his neck to see what was going on at the bottom of the auditorium.

A soft glow was lighting up the center, growing in strength, and now he could see movement down there — a procession of sorts, entering from another entrance that had been hidden in the shadows until now. A single white-robed figure stood out from the dark crowd, swaying slightly on his feet.

Burke. Virdon was sure it was him. Had they drugged him? That would complicate things. 

He glanced around him, searching for a better vantage point. Whatever happened now, he’d have to act quickly. 


	10. Chapter 10

It was dark. 

He didn’t remember how he had gotten here, or if this was even a place — he felt vague, unable to really pinpoint where his feet touched the ground, or if there even was any ground... or feet. 

Maybe this was a dream again. The thought worried him, because if this was a dream, then terrible things were hiding in the darkness, things that were looking for him, stalking him, and there would be pain—

Something touched his arm, and he jerked back, swallowing a startled cry. He wouldn’t alert the  things ...

 _ All is well,  _ someone told him,  _ you do not need to be afraid.  _

The voice was inside his head, and that was how he became certain that it was a dream — if he’d been awake, the sound would’ve met his ear from outside, the voice would’ve had substance, and he’d be able to tell if it was from a man or a woman; but he only received the information, without pitch or color. Words inside his head, and he couldn’t feel his head, either, he was just some fuzzy blob of consciousness, floating...

... floating forward now, led by the touch still lingering on his arm. Strangely enough, he could sense that touch, like a bright flare of light in the darkness. It was warm and solid, the only anchor he had, and he tried to focus on the sensation and not pay attention to the other dream pictures crowding in on him.

Deep voices intoning a wordless hum. The sound was all around him, the same overly-bright sensation as the touch on his arm. Starting in unison, the voices split into strange harmonies that made him dizzy and shifted his fear to a different kind of horror. He had been afraid of beast-like faces coming after him, monsters that wanted to blind him, mute him, defile him, but now he was scared of something else... something faceless, ageless, living deep inside the earth.

He was inside the earth, deep, deep down — he suddenly remembered this much. He was underground, and something was about to happen. In the distance, something moved aside, and a patch of light appeared, beckoning him.

He remembered a light in the darkness, and it had spewed forth monsters. They had been hunting him... him, and...

... Al. They had been underground, but somewhere else. But he couldn’t remember where.

Or when. 

Everything was just a blur, he couldn’t focus his eyes...

_ They’ve drugged me.  _

He felt unnaturally detached from that realization. He had no idea who had drugged him, or why. The monstrous faces were very close now — he was on the verge of being sucked into another nightmare, he could feel it, feel how his awareness was dimming, how he was entering the dream...

... wandering down the corridor of the  _ Icarus,  _ the voiceless hymn vibrating on his skin. The light was a dark, sulfuric yellow, and he couldn’t give the command to change it to daylight brightness, he couldn’t make a sound...

 _ Look at the frog,  _ a deep voice snarled behind him,  _ trying to be a simian! Strutting around in clothes, showing off its pathetic little fur patches. Take them off! Let the world see it for what it is, a soulless  _ animal!

Fear shot up his back like cold fire, raising every hair on his body, and urging him to run, to hide, to hide deep in the earth where the Beasts couldn’t find him; deeper and deeper into the darkness, falling down an endless tunnel, down to the seventh ring of Hell—

_ It’s nine rings,  _ Al’s voice reminded him.

 _ But there are only seven levels here,  _ Burke argued in his mind, and suddenly he remembered the place. The city under the Earth. It had seven levels, and he was on the seventh, the deepest of them all, buried alive, and he’d never see the sky again if he didn’t wake up now. He was still falling down the elevator shaft, he had lost his grip on the rope at some point, but now he was fighting to wake up.

_ Wake up! _

His mind had been separated from his body; he couldn’t feel it, he couldn’t see anything, hear anything, the only sensation left to him was one of falling endlessly. If he focused on that sensation, he’d be sucked deeper into the dream. Burke remembered the strange, wordless song, and although the memory filled him with irrational terror, he strained to find that sound again.

It was back, then, as sudden as if he’d broken through the surface of the lagoon where he’d used to go diving. The hum had acquired some lyrics now, but it didn’t really help him to orient himself, as it was all around him, the position of the singers indeterminable; it was as if they were at once far away and standing right beside him.

Part of the song was inside his head. 

This time, the terror flooding him burned off enough of the drug in his system to let the rest of his senses switch back on. Burke felt the weight of his body, the touch of someone’s hand on his arm, leading him somewhere — so he hadn’t dreamed that part — sweat running down his back and sides, and the uncomfortable, sticky sensation of skin on skin as his balls clung to his thighs with every step.  His sight was blurry, distorting the lights into fuzzy halos, but what he could see immediately commanded his full, horrified attention.

The darkness around him was broken by a huge shaft of light, a solid column of golden mist, and in its center, the light burning its edges with a fierce glow, elevated from the adulating masses around him, loomed a gigantic cylinder, its tip narrowed to a point in an elegant curve. 

Burke gaped at it, unable to tear his eyes away; the first thought his drug-addled brain offered was _ , They really have a spaceship down here.  _ Whatever it was, it looked like an old  _ Saturn _ rocket, just not  _ that  _ big, but still big enough that he had to tilt his head back to take it all in.

His companions reverently led him up a flight of stairs, to the top of the platform and into the shadow of the thing. Other people were waiting there, clustered around a square with blinking lights. The lights fascinated Burke; like the colossus above him, they arrested his eyes and his mind, hypnotizing him into empty complacency devoid of thinking or worry. 

The hymn swelled to a rousing jubilation.  _ “The heavens declare the glory of the Lord; and the firmament showeth His handiwork.” _

The people around him joined in, including the one who had led him to this place. With great effort, Burke turned his head, and registered without surprise that it was the one who had been with him since he had woken up here. He couldn’t remember her name (no, she had no name, he had made one up for her, but he couldn’t remember that one, either). 

_ “His sound is gone out unto all lands; and His light reaches to the ends of the world .” _

Her face was alight with joy, the kind of slightly hysterical rapture that made Burke uneasy beneath his drug-induced serenity.

_ “He descendeth from the outermost part of heaven; and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof. There is neither speech nor language: but His voice is heard among them.” _

Something was about to happen. Something was coming.

_ “Praise Him: my strength and my redeemer,  Lord of the Beginning and the End.” _

The woman reached for her headdress and took it off. She was bald underneath, something Burke had always suspected, but seeing it was still a shock.

The sea of voices took on a new intensity, an urgency that rushed into his brain and his body.  _ “Behold the truth that abides in us, His handicraft!” _

The woman at his side grabbed at the neckline of her tunic, and for a moment, Burke was worried she’d rend her clothes and would stand beside him stark naked. Not that he had anything against having a naked woman by his side, but he preferred them to be not raving with religious ecstasy in those moments. 

_ “Reveal that truth unto its Maker!” _

But her hands weren’t tearing down the fabric. They tore  _ upwards,  _ the fingers digging into the skin.

_ “I reveal my inmost self to my Lord!” _

Too horrified to make a sound, Burke stared as all around him, people began to tear off their faces.

* * *

From his vantage point at the uppermost rung of the auditorium, Virdon stared at the  _ thing  _ peeling itself from the darkness. It wasn’t moving — but the beam of a hidden spotlight created the illusion that it was slowly floating forward, revealing its monstrosity with deliberate care.

It was a bomb.

Virdon found it impossible to form a single thought; his body, his breath were frozen. Only when a voice at the center of the congregation began to speak was he able to suck in a lungful of air again.

“ It is written that in the first year after the Undoing, the blessing of the Lord rose from the caverns in the Earth to cleanse the land, and thereafter my people built a new city in the blackened bowels of the Earth.”

The speaker was addressing the bomb; his back was to the congregation, so Virdon couldn’t see his face, but the voice was deep and sonorous, with the power to capture the masses and command their undivided attention. Virdon found that he couldn’t look away, nor tune out the man’s sermon. 

It certainly sounded like some kind of scripture.  _ The Manual of Our Lord, the Bomb.  _

Where had these people found that thing? How had they managed to get it here and bury it seven stories deep? And — good God! — was it still functional? How decayed was the detonator? Virdon wasn’t sure if he should wish for someone to have faithfully maintained a nuclear warhead according to the  _ Technical Manuals,  _ or not. Both options seemed to be a recipe for disaster.

“The radiance of the Lord touched the Faithful and perfected them. And the Lord sent them beneath the Earth to serve Him and worship Him all days until the end of time.”

_ This is an abomination... a perversion of worship... even a golden calf wouldn’t have been as bad as this! _

“Blessed be the Lord everlasting, the Alpha and the Omega, whom we shall serve all our days in peace,” the congregation answered in unison.

And then they began to sing.

Virdon felt sick, a physical nausea lodging in his gut and tightening his throat. The hymn reminded him vaguely of pieces sung in his own church, and part of him wondered if those songs were memories of an actual nuclear attack. But the bigger part recoiled from what he was forced to witness.

_ And I wanted to beg these people’s help. What a fool I’ve been.  _ He wanted to jump down into the center and shout at them that they were revering an agent of death and destruction, an anathema to God who had created life, and who wanted mankind to tend to the bountiful Earth, not ‘cleanse’ it with nuclear fire. 

_Is this what happened? Did we send off those bombs and defile His gift to us?_ _And these imbeciles dare to_ praise _this man-made destroyer as their god? Instead of repenting day and night for what we’ve done to the planet, to ourselves..._

Another voice rose up in his memory, citing a different kind of scripture.  _ “Beware the beast Man, for he is the Devil’s spawn. Let him not breed in great numbers, for he will make a desert of his home and yours.” _

Galen had quoted it at him, when Virdon had asked him about the apes’ hostility against their human slaves. That had been before Zana had lost her baby, and back then, Galen had shrugged off the passage as mere tradition; he hadn’t considered himself to be religious. Zana had objected to the first part, but not the second, arguing that  _ any _ species, man or ape or bird or deer, would wreak havoc on its environment if allowed to proliferate unchecked. 

But neither bird nor deer nor ape had built nuclear weapons. Only humans had, and by the looks of it, had used them on each other at some point after his and Burke’s departure, and changed the face of the Earth forever.

_ Therefore the Lord God banished them from the garden of Eden... and made them beasts of the Earth, servants to the apes.  _ Virdon swallowed hard. No matter what might have taken place on the surface — some kind of misguided genetic experiment, most likely — the apes’ rise to rulership and mankind’s concurrent demotion to animal status felt like a direct response to whatever sin had finally tipped the balance. The mills of God ground slowly but inexorably.

The descendants of the sinners of yore were still praising the instrument of their own destruction.  _ “His sound is gone out unto all lands; and His light reaches towards the ends of the world.” _

A flash of blinding light; and a great wind, as the blast waves raced across the continent, flattening the cities in their path.  _ Where were you when it happened, Sally? And Chris and the baby?  _ The familiar ache was back, sitting like a stone behind his breastbone. 

He couldn’t protect his family, separated by a thousand years from them, but he had to protect his friend, who had now reached the bomb and was staring up at it, seemingly as stunned as Virdon felt. 

The hood of Burke’s robe fell back as he tilted his head, and with a jolt, Virdon saw that his head had been shaved. He remembered how gingerly Burke had moved; he hadn't been sure before, but now he was convinced that the major had been drugged into compliance — yet another complication to take into account. 

The hymn rose to a crescendo, and with its last line, exhorting the congregation to reveal their true selves to the bomb, everyone began to peel off their face. The disfigured faces were revolting, the glistening sheen of their mutated skin barely concealing the veins and muscles underneath, but with the vision of a nuclear blast tearing his wive and children to shreds still vivid in his mind, Virdon was too numb to react to the sight.

Burke, however, wasn’t. He jerked away from the small group gathered around him, stumbling backwards to put some distance between himself and the bomb with its worshippers. He didn’t stand a chance; two guards grabbed his arms and forced him to stand still, as the priest began to speak once more.

The guards were forcing a struggling Burke to his knees now, while the... priest, although Virdon recoiled from that notion... held up something to the congregation. Virdon squinted, but couldn’t make out what it was. Did these people even include a mock Communion in their mock Holy Mass? 

Of course they did.

_ “Lord of the Heavenly Fire, Force Almighty and Everlasting,”  _ the man intoned, _ “O Shining Cloud who descended upon us to make Heaven under Earth, who reaches into the very core of our being to perfect us in Thine image, we ask that You look upon this wretched creature of the Upper Abode with mercy and forgiveness.” _

With clenched teeth, Virdon watched as the false priest presented whatever he was holding in his hand to Burke. Burke was shaking his head, pushing back against the guards holding him, while the robed figure before him kept waving his hands in his face. His friend was refusing to take the ‘wafer’ for different reasons than Virdon would have, but Virdon silently cheered him on regardless.

_ “He was brought before You to receive Thine radiance and blessing, that he may be made perfect in Thine image, and join the order of the Faithful,”  _ the priest continued, ignoring Burke’s resistance. 

_ ‘Receive your radiance’?  _ An icy sliver of dread flashed through Virdon.  _ Does he mean ‘radiation’? Are they trying to poison Pete with a radioactive wafer? Or a retrovirus to alter his genetic code... turn him into one of these monstrosities? _

It didn’t matter. He had to stop whatever was going on,  _ now,  _ and improvise from there. Down in the center, a third guard had positioned himself behind Burke, forcing his head back, and his jaw open. 

The priest leaned forward to place his poison on Burke’s tongue.

Virdon drew his gun and fired.

* * *

Somewhere in the back of his mind, in the tiny part that was still sane, Burke kept telling himself that he was high, that he was having a bad trip, and that none of what was happening was real. 

But the rest of him was screaming in terror, trying to get away from the ghoulish faces surrounding him, trying to escape this new nightmare that managed to be even more sinister than all of Urko’s hauntings. 

Through the haze of his nightmare, Burke became dimly aware that the monstrosity looming above him was shoving something towards his face. He jerked back instinctively, trying to see what it was. A silvery round thing, like a silver dollar. He shook his head, confused and terrified; what did that zombie try to do to him?

Someone behind him put a hand on his forehead and tilted his head back; their other hand forced his jaw open, and the dollar-thing was shoved into his mouth. It tasted bitter and prickled on his tongue. Whatever it was, it would harm him. But the hand that had forced his mouth open now clamped it shut, forcing him to keep the thing in his mouth as it slowly dissolved on his tongue.

The monsters were stronger than him, inhumanly strong, holding him in place. Their song engulfed him, drew him under, seeped into his brain, his mind, and—

Suddenly he was no longer alone in his thoughts. 

Burke could feel the connected mind of the People brushing against him; his brain, trying to somehow translate this novel input of information that didn’t bother with any of the usual sensory channels, unhelpfully provided him with the image and sensation of a swarm of locusts enveloping him. 

He could  _ feel _ their tiny legs clambering all over him. He couldn’t shake the reality of the sensation, no matter how well he knew it was just a hallucination. The critters were crawling up his legs, his arms, his back, and Burke howled in terror as he felt them digging into the base of his skull and worming into his brain. 

_ “Al, AL! Oh god Al help me, help me, get them off me, GET THEM OFF ME GET OFF ME—“ _

The crawling stopped. 

A myriad of antennae froze, trembling slightly in surprise and alarm. They had taken his memory of Virdon, his image, from his mind. 

The critters swiveled around, searching, searching...

They knew what to look for, now. A new wave of horror swept through Burke as he realized why his former interrogations had been done so haphazardly — the monsters had always known that they’d get access to his brain through this ceremony. They’d always planned to invade his mind, to tear his memories from him, find his accomplice, find out what his ape masters had sent him here for, and to turn him into one of them, a skinless monster who could never walk on the surface again, never see the sky again...

Then something banged real loud right beside his left ear, and the hands on his head vanished. Burke doubled over and spit out the disc, then collected all the saliva he could suck from his cheeks, and spit it out, too. His tongue was still prickling, and he felt a dry heave constricting his throat.

Shouts, and things crashing around him, but the noise was low and far away. The locusts were gone; his brain, his mind, felt empty and raw. Burke wiped tears and snot from his face, trying to clear his head. Finally, eyes still blurry, he raised his head and looked around him.

More banging sounds — shots. Someone was firing a gun, not giving a damn about ricocheting bullets. Better seek cover... but he was still too out of it to put that thought into action. The damn drug was still wreaking havoc with his brain, stubbornly glueing those raw, veiny monster faces on people’s heads. They looked... hideous. Burke wished his sight would return to normal.

At least the rest of the information his senses provided him with seemed to make sense, even if his reaction to it was still lagging. Part of the crowd was scrambling for cover, while a smaller group wearing white tunics — security, his brain supplied him belatedly — converged on the shooter. 

The shooter. Virdon. 

Of course. Who else? 

Burke blinked, trying to hit on the obvious conclusion to that realization. Al was in trouble, there were too many guards closing in on him, and he had to be running out of ammo any moment now.

Diversion... he needed a diversion. Something that’d get those fuckers’ attention.

Burke’s eyes were again drawn to the blinking lights on the console before him. Some of them were muted by the congealing blood and brains of the ringmaster, who’d been the first to catch a bullet. Since it had been him who had forced that strange silver plate into his mouth, Burke didn’t feel especially sorry for him; his eyes were drawn to a bright red button that basically screamed  _ Self-Destruct Only Authorized Personnel etc. _

Burke figured a self-destruct sequence would set everyone’s priorities straight.

He stumbled forward and pushed the button. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As you can probably tell, this is my nod to the only scene from _Beneath the Planet of the Apes_ that stuck in my mind for _years_ afterwards, when I had long forgotten the rest of the movie. 😁


	11. Chapter 11

Virdon fired into the approaching guards, acutely aware that he wouldn’t have time to reload. He had brought two handguns and his knife to this fight — in hindsight, he wished he’d brought one of the apes’ lever-action rifles down with him, too; it would’ve given him another six bullets to thin out the enemy’s ranks.

They were the enemy; of that, there was no longer any doubt. He’d been a fool, again, falling prey to his hopes and dreams of reaching home. He should’ve listened to Burke... now it looked as if his friend would pay for his folly with his life. 

The space around him was emptying rapidly, as people were diving for cover or scrambling for the exits, an ever-widening bubble of unobstructed field of fire. The only people rushing towards him were the guards, unarmed save for their cattle prods, oblivious or indifferent to their certain deaths. Killing them was as easy as trapshooting. 

Except that they outnumbered his rounds four to one. 

Virdon had no idea if they were aware of this, counting on it, or merely fanatical enough to believe that he’d miss often enough that at least some of them could reach and tackle him, and there was no time to wonder about it. He dropped the empty handgun while he was already drawing the other one, never missing a beat—

“INITIATING LAUNCH PROCEDURE. ATTENTION ALL PERSONNEL. CLEAR LAUNCH AREA IMMEDIATELY. PROCEEDING TO LAUNCH IN SIXTY SECONDS. FIFTY-NINE. FIFTY-EIGHT...”

The voice was female, pleasant, unhurried, and completely artificial. A computer voice, blaring from some hidden loudspeakers. Virdon, like everyone else, froze for a second to gaze up at the domed ceiling, trying to make out the origin of the voice as well as make sense of what it was saying...

It was counting down to...

... to launching the missile!

Virdon’s gaze jumped to Burke who was still at the center platform, relived of his captors’ grip for the moment, free to wreak havoc of a different sort. His friend was leaning on the computer console that had doubled as an altar for the perverted ceremony Virdon had been forced to witness. 

He narrowed his eyes. Burke was leaning casually on a red light, its glow seeping through his fingers. Catching his gaze, he gave Virdon a lazy salute.

“FORTY-THREE...”

Virdon sucked in a sudden breath. “Burke, you crazy, reckless son of a...”

There was no time to finish this thought. The guards split up, four of them racing down the aisle towards Burke, presumably to stop the launch sequence, but there was no way of knowing if they’d be content to just shove Burke aside, and Virdon had no intention to find out the hard way. He fired two quick shots at the remaining guards, then hurled the weapon over their heads with a shout.

_ “Burke! Catch!” _

Burke’s head jerked up; he had heard and understood, as his eyes were following the trajectory of the gun flying towards him, but he made no move to catch it. It clattered at his feet, and he just stared at it, as if unsure what he was supposed to do with it.

“Dammit, Burke,  _ pick it up and use it!”  _ The curse flew from Virdon’s lips before he could stop himself, and then there was no more time to worry about Burke. 

The guards were swarming him, their cattle prods crackling with electricity. He smashed his fists and elbows into their glistening, disfigured faces, noting with satisfaction that whatever had robbed them of their skin had apparently made them more susceptible to pain and tissue damage, too; it only took one direct hit to knock them out for good. 

But there were to many of them; a hot, sizzling pain flashed in his hip and down his leg — the bad one, the one with the old scar — and his whole side went numb immediately. He crashed to the floor, a sea of demonic visages looming over him; sparks flew from their cattle prods as if they were carrying the scepters of Hell.

Virdon drew his knife. They wouldn’t take him prisoner. They wouldn’t get him alive. In the distance, he heard gunfire. He hoped it was Burke shooting.

And then they stopped, all of a sudden; turned their heads towards something Virdon couldn’t see from his position on the floor, and drew away, then turned and ran.

“TWELVE. ELEVEN.”

“Al, get up!” Burke was there, just as sudden, tearing at his arm. “We gotta get out of here asap, or this thing will barbecue us!”

“EIGHT.”

Virdon struggled to get up from the floor, but his leg was a dead and foreign thing dragging at his hip, and he couldn’t get his balance. Burke mumbled something unintelligible, grabbed him under the arms with both hands and yanked him up. He slung Virdon’s arm over his shoulder and steered him up the aisle. “Gotta get out before it seals the exits!”

“FIVE. FOUR...”

“What in God’s name did you  _ do?”  _ The chamber was empty now, save for the two of them. Burke’s robe was crumpled and askew, revealing that he was completely naked under it.

“Pushed a button, launched a nuke...”

“Yes, I gathered that! But  _ why?”  _ They had reached the doors that were already sliding shut. Behind them, the computer announced in the same pleasant, unconcerned voice, “TWO. ONE—“

They stumbled through the gate, the doors hissing shut behind them. A clank announced their locking down. Before them, the plaza was empty; everyone had fled to the elevators at the periphery.

Then the floor began to vibrate beneath their feet. On the other side of these doors, a weapon of mass destruction was reaching for the skies.

“Figured you could use a distraction.” Burke’s pupils were huge, his irises invisible. He was still drugged out of his mind, but Virdon was too horrified to care.

“A  _ distraction?  _ Do you have any idea where you just sent that  _ nuclear warhead?” _

”... France?” Burke blinked, then giggled. “Some monkey over there is gonna go, like,  _ merde!” _

It was pointless, Virdon realized. Burke was in no shape to grasp the damage he had done, and if Virdon was completely honest, the responsibility for the whole debacle was solely on him. 

He sighed. “Come on, let’s catch a ride to the surface before they have a chance to regroup.” Life was slowly returning to his leg with a thousand pinpricks, and he could feel the ground under his right foot again. He began to hobble towards the elevators. Burke caught up with him in a second, offering a helpful shoulder to lean on. Virdon accepted — this wasn’t the time or place for stupid pride.

In more than one respect. He cleard his throat. “And Pete... you were right. We should’ve left when you said so. I messed this up... and I’m sorry.”

Burke didn’t react right away, and Virdon wasn’t sure if he’d even heard him. But then he mumbled, “As long as we’re gonna leave  _ now...” _

“We are,” Virdon assured him, “we are. There’s nothing down here worth staying a second longer... absolutely nothing.”

They waited for the elevator doors to open in silence, while the world around them trembled from the fury of the ascending bomb.

* * *

He was drifting upward, like in a dream. He was also drifting in and out of the dream, and right now, the surreal feeling was strong again. Burke tried to focus on his senses, but that was tricky, because he seemed to have more of them than usual, more of them than strictly necessary, and they were kind of bleeding into each other. Al was a solid presence beside him, warm and heavy as he leaned on his shoulder for support, but he was also a bronze sound and a green flavor, and a thicket of guilt and grief, all thorny and sharp, and it was  _ just too much,  _ and all jumbled together.

Burke felt as if he’d throw up any second; he just hoped he wouldn’t throw up all over Virdon.

Then the elevator suddenly jerked sideways, as if punched by a huge fist, and Burke lost control. The sour stench of vomit filled the cramped space, all metallic purple and misery.

“Sorry,” he mumbled. 

“It’s okay.” Al’s deep voice drifted around him in lazy swirls, soothing and reassuring. It settled in solid pools around his legs, steadying them. “You’ve been pumped with drugs to the hilt, and I’ve no idea what kind of drugs — it’ll take some time before the effects wear off. Don’t worry, I’ll keep watch.”

“I know,” Burke murmured, and he did, he  _ knew,  _ and it was so tempting to just let go and let Virdon take care of everything, let himself be enveloped in the warm glow of his protection, but there was something... something he had to remember... something important.

“Think they’re gonna go looking for us?” It wasn’t what he was trying to remember, but it was somehow connected to it. Maybe it’d lead him to the thing that he had forgotten.

“Definitely.” Virdon sounded grim, the bronze in his voice turning to steel, then lead. “As pressed for time as we are, I want to go by my cave and get our weapons and supplies. We may have to force our way out, and I don’t want to go against their stunners bare-handed again.”

His cave. Virdon’s cave. Burke remembered it — it was where he had shaved off Virdon’s eyebrows. Unless he’d dreamed that, too. He gingerly touched his own face, then felt for his skull. Not a single hair on his head anymore, including his eyebrows.  _ Karma’s a little bitch.  _ He didn’t remember being shaved, but he was missing large chunks of recent events. 

“I had a cave, too,” he informed Virdon. “In one of the tunnels, like yours.”

“You did?” Virdon’s voice had changed again, humoring him, tasting of apples. 

The synesthesia was driving Burke nuts. He tried to ignore the rogue input, forcing himself to focus solely on the content of the conversation. “Yeah. For my own stuff. Things Blue didn’t need to know about...”

And then memory hit him — the thing he had tried to remember. The drowsiness receded like a tide, and for the moment, Burke was clear-headed again. 

It wouldn’t last, he knew that, he could already feel another wave of madness building far out at sea. He had to hurry before he lost his mind again. “Al, we need to get off at level Three before we go to your cave.”

“What for?” Virdon sounded unwilling. Burke reached across and slapped his hand on the button for level Three. “We don’t have time—“

“We gotta  _ make _ time for this, Al, or we won’t stand a chance to get out.” There was an undercurrent to his synesthesia, something that had been dragging on his mind all this time, although he’d done his best to ignore it: not a sight, or a sound, or a smell, or a flavor. Something else. An  _ awareness,  _ like sensing when someone was staring at your back, like feeling the atmosphere of an empty room in a creepy old house.

He could still feel the Swarm, although it was scattered now, disjointed, no longer a unified entity. He could sense it spread out across the corridors, the plazas, the private quarters, up and down the levels of the nest, and he could sense parts of it clumping together, coordinating... searching.

“They’re already looking for us, Al. Trust me, we gotta get off at Three.”

The doors hissed open, and Burke, still lucid enough to be careful, threw a quick glance down the corridor. No one in sight. He stepped out of the cab, dragging Virdon along with him.

“What’s so important on this—” Virdon hissed, then fell suddenly silent. “The hydroelectric plant. Pete.” He stopped, forcing Burke to stop, too. He turned around to face Virdon.

“Pete, what have you done to the plant?”

Virdon’s voice was muted, as if he was speaking from the end of a long tunnel. Burke felt panic sizzling in his gut like a ball of silver; his time was running out. He’d be engulfed in another episode of dreamlike madness any moment now.

“Nothing. Not yet, anyway. Come on, I’m not gonna wait around for you. Clock’s ticking, Colonel!” He spun around, then steadied himself against the wall with one hand before taking off. After a moment, he sensed Virdon catching up with him. 

Sensed _him_. His presence, his... his being. His ‘Al-ness’. The new sense unnerved him, but Burke shoved the feeling down. He’d freak out later, provided he was still alive then.

Right now, his newly-installed radar told him that the machine hall was unusually busy. Burke’s breath hitched as a vision of locusts crawling over him appeared unbidden in his mind, but he couldn’t let it stop him now. There was no time to wait this out. “Al,” he whispered, “this time I need  _ you _ to provide the diversion. Cross the hall right to the far end, draw their attention. I... I’ll catch up with you.”

Virdon hesitated. “What are you... Pete, I don’t think you’re in the right state of mind right now to make any tactical decisions...”

“I wasn’t drugged when I prepared this thing,” Burke snapped. He could sense the Swarm, and it was angry beneath the panic. It hadn’t forgotten about them.

“What  _ thing?” _

Annoyance flared up in him like a jet flame. “Dammit, will you follow  _ me _ for once? I know what I’m doing!”  _ Like I followed you down here, right to where these fuckers shaved my balls and fed me plutonium for lunch! _

The implication wasn’t lost on Virdon, judging by his next words. “Alright. We’ll do it your way.” His worry was palpable — would’ve been even without Burke’s heightened senses. “You sure you’ll be able to catch up with me? I’m not leaving you behind, Pete.”

“I promise, they won’t even think of coming for me, if your distraction is good enough.” He felt nauseous again, and the odd prickling on his tongue was back. What had they given him? What had it done to him... or was it still doing things to him, to his DNA? “No time to explain, Al. You gotta trust me on this... Do you trust me, sir?”

Virdon held his gaze for a moment, then nodded. “I know who to trust out here. But if you don’t get to the other side of this hall in less than sixty seconds, I’ll come back and get you.”

The prickling sensation had spread to his gums. Burke swallowed hard and nodded. “Won’t even need that long. Go, go, go!” 

He didn’t linger to watch Virdon jog ahead, not as fast as he’d wish him to run — his bad leg was still giving him trouble. If his plan worked, the techies would abandon their chase soon enough to rescue their babies. 

If it didn’t work, they’d both be fucked anyway.

Shouts ahead of him — his signal to break cover and race to the generators. In his dazed state, he didn’t really feel connected to his feet, but somehow, they still carried him to the spot between the turbine casings. He stopped at the first maintenance hatch, casting a quick glance around before yanking it open. On the other side of the generators, slapping sounds told him that the crowd had caught up with Virdon and was beating the shit out of him.

He’d better hurry up.

Burke felt for the package he had hidden in a nook under the casing and sighed a breath of relief when his hand closed around it. It was ready for use, cased in oily wax to glue it for a few seconds to the inner wall of the turbine’s casing, and outfitted with the most primitive of fuses, a simple wick doused in alcohol. 

His past self had even thought of storing steel and flint in the nook. Burke was amazed at his own foresight. He lit the fuse and watched it for a moment to make sure the flame didn’t go out again. Then he raced off to the next generator.

“Fire in the hole,” he murmured as he yanked at the next maintenance hatch, then threw himself to the floor that was already coming up to greet him. The lights flickered, then stabilized.

“And  _ bam _ , here we go!” He couldn’t help but giggle as he repeated the procedure, then raced to the third and last generator for an encore. The shouts had changed; they were shrill and panicked, and moving away from him, towards the shredded turbine. The rushing sound of water was interrupted by the boom of a second explosion, and this time, half of the lights around the hall shorted out and stayed dark. 

Burke threw a spark on the last fuse and craned his neck to find Virdon, but didn’t see him. He had no time to stay and scan the hall; the flame was already hissing towards its destination, throwing angry sparks that promised a glorious explosion — one he didn’t want to get caught up in.

This time, all the lights went out. The only sound over the yelled conversations was the swelling roar of water that was no longer confined to the tubes guiding it through the turbines. It was cold; it shocked Burke out of his dissociated state, something he was deeply grateful for. 

_ “Al! Where are you?” _

He hadn’t thought this through; the darkness was impenetrable, and the noise as well, and he’d never find Virdon, and they’d both drown—

Burke stood frozen to the spot, the water swirling around his legs, and fought his rising panic. Where was Virdon?  _ I’m not leaving you behind, Pete. I’m coming back for you. I know who to trust out here. _

He was hyperventilating, his teeth clattering from the cold and from shock.  _ I’m not gonna leave you behind, either, dammit! Where the hell are you?  _ He tried to remember where the technicians had wrestled Virdon to the ground, and took a few hesitant steps... but it was hopeless. He couldn’t even see his hands in front of his face.

His tongue was electric, sending pinpricks of energy through his sinuses and into his brain. Burke gingerly extended his  _ awareness _ into the dark, searching for that bronze sound, that heat and gravity and sense of utter calm. 

And found it. 

Careful, anxious not to lose this tendril of connection, he waded through the utter darkness until he bumped into someone who immediately tried to smash a fist into his face. The same  _ awareness _ let him evade the punch with ease. “It’s me, Al! Stop trying to put my lights out, it’s already dark enough in here!”

“Pete? How’d you find me, I can’t see a thing...?”

“Saw where you went down, memorized your position,” Burke lied. “Let’s get outta here before someone finds a flashlight or something.”

“I’d give something for a flashlight,” Virdon muttered. “I’ve no idea where that other end of the hall even is. It’s pitch black... how the  _ hell _ did you blow up all three generators?”

It took Burke a moment to process the question; most of his attention was still directed at that strange  _ awareness  _ that he had dubbed his ‘radar sense’. Right now, it provided him with a kind of ghost map, a sense of where he was in relation to everything else. A sense of the  _ nest.  _ Did that mean he had already become one of the Swarm? He shuddered at the thought.

But right now, it was useful for getting them to the elevator. Burke began wading through the rapidly rising water, tugging at Virdon’s arm to follow him. 

“Fertilizer bombs,” he remembered to answer Virdon’s question. “The guys at level One were really helpful, once I convinced them I was trying to plant a garden in my hospital room.”

He heard Virdon heave a deep sigh, audible even over the sounds of rising water and despairing techs, but his commander wisely refrained from commenting. Which was just as well, considering none of this shit would’ve been necessary if Virdon had listened to him when he’d told him they should bail. 

Burke’s self-congratulatory annoyance with Virdon’s lapse of judgment evaporated when they finally reached the elevator. 

“Has it occurred to you,” Virdon’s calm voice sounded from the darkness, “that the generators you blew up wholesale produced the electricity for the elevators, too?”

* * *

Standing in the utter darkness, knee-deep in the gurgling water, the only thing Virdon could think of was,  _ I should’ve known better. _

Drugged or not, Burke’s approach to most problems was to shoot them down or blow them up, and while Virdon could appreciate the urge to bomb this abomination into oblivion, he would’ve preferred not to be trapped inside while it happened. If he hadn’t felt so guilty for putting Burke on the altar of this satanic cult in his desperate search for a computer, he wouldn’t have given in so easily. 

Burke’s earnest question still rang in his ear.  _ Yes, I trust you, Pete, but I also know you, and I should’ve seen this coming. _

But it was pointless to waste time with self-recrimination. They had more pressing problems right now. “We need to find another way to the surface. I doubt they have emergency staircases here — at least I haven’t come across one. But the vents need to go all the way down.”

“We could force the doors open,” Burke suggested after a moment of silence. “Climb up the elevator shaft. You said you wanted to get to our stuff in your cave...”

Virdon shook his head, even if Burke couldn’t see it in the dark. “We never thought of permanently fixing the shaft with ropes, and without them, we can’t climb it. And I don’t even know if this one here leads to my cave. Forget about it, it’s beyond our reach now.”

He thought he heard a muttered, “Fuck!” but was distracted by a lone light bulb flickering to life above his head, throwing a murky red glow on the water. Somewhere, an auxiliary generator had gone online; the enemy was already regrouping.

“We better move,” he said, throwing a meaningful glance at the light. 

Burke tentatively pushed the call button, but the door didn’t open. “I doubt the elevators are connected to the emergency grid,” Virdon commented. “Not before some more vital systems are operational again. At least we’ll be able to  _ see _ a ventilation shaft now when we pass by one.”

They splashed down the corridor which was now bathed in a murky red glow, barely enough to make out the walls and the ceiling; the bottom was a moving black mass of water that was still gushing from the torn pipes in the machine hall behind them. 

“Al, we can’t leave without our stuff,” Burke’s voice rose above the murmur of the still rising water. “We won’t last a day in the desert without water or a tent. An’ me in that bathrobe...”

“Yes, I know,” Virdon muttered. ”... you’re right, we need to organize some clothes for you.” He smiled mirthlessly. “Let’s find a technician. There should be a few around here somewhere.”

It didn’t take them long to find and subdue a tech of roughly Burke’s size, and force him to hand over his uniform. Virdon was tempted to take him out permanently, but despite the creature’s hideous features, he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Somehow, he still saw them as humans — horribly deformed, horribly misled humans, but humans all the same. And as far as he knew, this one had done nothing worse than being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

He bound and gagged him with Burke’s cut-up robe, and tied him to a pipe running along the wall, out of sight. By now, the water had stopped rising; some of the man’s work mates had apparently closed the turnstile. 

“We gotta get to our stuff, Al,” Burke repeated while he struggled to put a wet boot on his wet foot. “I think I remember which one’s our elevator.”

“I told you we can’t climb up a bare hoistway. At least the vents are narrow enough to stem up...”

“I’m a freeclimber, remember?” Burke insisted. ”I can climb fullbody chimneys—“

“You’re also drugged to your gills,” Virdon cut him off. “And I’m not having your death on my conscience when you fall down that damn shaft all the way to level Seven.”

“But...”

“This discussion is over, Major!” Softer, he added, “I grew up in the desert, Pete. We  _ will _ survive, even if I have nothing but a knife on me. Besides, we can try to scavenge something from level One. The ventilation shafts open into every level, remember?”

Burke said nothing, but he followed him without further debate when Virdon began walking down the corridor scanning the walls for signs of ventilation holes. The splashing sounds they were making made it impossible to hear if someone was following or coming towards them, and Virdon kept his hand on the hilt of his knife. It didn’t do much to quell his nervousness.

“They took my ANSA knife,” Burke said suddenly. 

“Who?”

“When they arrested me.”

Virdon half-turned, surprised. “You were arrested? What for?”

Burke hesitated. “Not important. But I think I’ve lost it for good this time.” He sounded morose. That knife had meant a lot to him — Virdon suspected because it was... well, an ANSA knife. It even had the logo etched into its blade. A token of the world they had left behind. A reminder that their world had really existed. 

He didn’t know what to say. The thing itself was replaceable, but the significance it held wasn’t. 

“I’m sorry,” he offered at last. Burke didn’t answer.

They carried on in silence, straining their eyes for an opening in the wall that promised a connection to the surface, and tried every elevator they passed on their way around level Three, but luck had again deserted them; Virdon was sure that this level had to be ventilated, but suspected that he had missed the vents in the murky emergency lighting. The elevators were all still dead, to Burke’s dismay. He had tried to apologize for his rash action in the machine hall, but Virdon waved it away. As far as he was concerned, he had made the bigger gaffe.

“What now?” Burke asked, sounding slightly more normal. The exertion and the cold water seemed to have burned off the drug somewhat. “We’ve been in every sub-sector now — well, except the main hall — and nothing works. An’ I haven’t seen any ventilation grills anywhere.”

“They’ve got to be here somewhere,” Virdon insisted. “The lighting’s just too bad. We must’ve overlooked them. We’ll do another round... what else can we do? Maybe the elevators will go back online in the meantime, or they’ll switch on a few more lights.”

“Or send their shock troops after us,” Burke muttered. “They’re already on their way.”

He sounded strangely certain of that fact, although Virdon silently agreed that it was just a matter of time before the colony had recovered enough from the shock to remember who had been responsible for the current crisis. 

“If you have a better idea — one that doesn’t involve breaking our necks in an elevator shaft — let me know,” he just said. He saw Burke shrug and dejectedly shake his head in the twilight—

— then freeze all of a sudden.

“What is it?” Virdon asked, alarmed. Burke cocked his head slightly, as if listening for something, but Virdon couldn’t hear anything, just the rushing and gurgling of water. 

“They’re coming,” Burke said suddenly, as if jerking awake. “Five guards in southwestern corridor, eight in machine hall, both headed this way. Trying to catch us in a pincer grip. And they’ve got guns.”

“What?” Virdon asked, gobsmacked. “How can you know...”

“This way.” Burke grabbed his arm and steered him down the corridor. “We can slip through if we’re fast enough. They can’t get a clear reading on me... I think the link is degrading.”

“What the... what are you talking about?” 

“Later.” Burke broke into a run, still gripping his arm, and they splashed down the corridor, the water dragging like molasses at their legs. 

“Pete, you can’t know—”

A loud crack, and something whizzed past his head, then ricocheted off the wall ahead of him with an angry howl. A quick glance over his shoulder revealed erratic flashes of gunfire in the reddish darkness behind them. Virdon instinctively ducked his head and tried to run faster. 

They’d be caught sooner or later despite Burke’s strange new spider sense, he thought, as they furtively crossed the machine hall where a throng of technicians labored over the eviscerated generators. The level was big, but not infinite, and with all the elevators taken offline — deliberately, he’d come to suspect — it was a giant mouse trap, with ever more cats piling in. Maybe they’d have to resort to Burke’s suggestion and try climbing up a hoistway after all.

They were in one of the peripheral corridors now, by his estimation, although Virdon wasn’t entirely sure because it was too wide for one — everything became smaller and more cramped towards the periphery, like a Mandelbrot shape — when Burke stopped so suddenly that he bumped into him.

“Ahead of us,” Burke murmured, and turned abruptly. “Gotta go back, try another corridor.”

They splashed back the way they had come from, but after maybe fifty steps, Burke stopped just as abruptly. “Shit.”

This time, the pincer approach had been successful. They were caught between two groups advancing at them from opposite ends of the corridor. Burke turned to him. “Gimme you knife,” he said urgently.

Virdon hesitated. “They have guns, what do you think you can do against them with a knife?”

“It’s not for them. It’s for myself.”

_ “What?” _

“Al, they’re gonna make me one of them!” Burke’s voice had taken on a slightly hysterical tone. “That thing they put in my mouth, it’s gonna overwrite my DNA or something, I dunno, but I’m not gonna let it happen again!”

He reached for Virdon’s arm, but Virdon yanked it away. “If you think I’m going to help you commit suicide, think again!”

_ “They’ll crawl into my head, Al, forever and ever,”  _ Burke shouted, and Virdon remembered his own horror down in the temple. 

Evil, they were evil, and they frightened him in a way not even Urko had. 

“They won’t get us,” he said, and grabbed Burke’s shoulders. “You hear me? We won’t let them capture you, and if they kill us, so be it, but I won’t let you kill yourself!”

Burke nodded, a jerky movement of his head. Virdon felt him tremble under his hands.

He thumped the younger man’s shoulder. “And they  _ won’t  _ get us. I just remembered why this corridor is so spacious although it’s in the outskirts. I saw the same on some of the other levels, and it... well, I’ll show you. Come on.” 

This time, it was him who held Burke’s arm in a vice grip as he hurried down the corridor. Ahead of him, he thought he could hear splashing sounds coming towards them. He tried to ignore them. The gate had to be here, he dimly remembered passing it a few moments before...

... and there it was. Big enough to let a car through, if this world still had cars, its frame slightly warped by the shock waves of Burke’s triple explosion earlier, so that it didn’t close completely. He had ignored it before, because as far as he knew, these gates didn’t lead up to the surface — in fact, he had no idea where they led to. Maybe into a dead end. Maybe they were just storage tunnels. But right now, it was the only escape left.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for the delay, I was held up by four fantastic yuletide gifts, which I'll shamelessly plug here, because I secretly hope to recruit you to this brand-new fandom of two people (aka me and my yuletide author)! Here's the stories' page: [Jao Series](https://archiveofourown.org/tags/Jao%20Series%20-%20Eric%20Flint%20*a*%20K*d*%20D*d*%20Wentworth%20*a*%20David%20Carrico/works)

For a split second, Burke seriously contemplated suicide by cop. Virdon didn’t get it — of course he didn’t, he didn’t have the Swarm crawling inside his brain, chittering, burrowing...

Burke shivered, heaved, but there was no lunch to lose, he couldn’t remember when he’d last eaten something. 

“Come on, ” Virdon whispered and dragged him through a narrow gap in the wall that Burke hadn’t even noticed in the dim light, and into absolute darkness. 

They’d find them in here, too, they’d always know where he was, because they were  _ inside his head, all the time, all the time, forever and— _

The hand around his arm suddenly vanished, and Burke heard a thud and a whispered curse. “Al?”

“Last time I scraped my knees that bad, I was eight years old.” 

Burke blindly groped in the darkness until he found Virdon’s shoulder. He helped him to his feet. 

“I fell over a rail,” Virdon whispered. “There’s a rail track leading down this tunnel. You know what that means?”

Before Burke could answer, a light fell into the tunnel and directly on Virdon. Without thinking, Burke pushed him, hard, and Virdon stumbled sideways, out of the spotlight into the darkness again, as a sharp crack reverberated from the walls. 

_ “Run!”  _

He didn’t need the encouragement. The search lights were stabbing through the darkness now, jumping along the walls, the floor, a stroboscope of white flashes accompanied by cracks of gunfire and the angry howls of ricocheting bullets. The rail track emerged in the flickering light, luring them on with a promise of escape that Burke didn’t dare to believe in. They’d just end up in a storage hall, even deeper inside the bowels of the earth. 

But he kept running, survival instinct overriding his earlier plans to catch a bullet and be done with it all. From the corner of his eye he saw something massive sitting on the tracks, but the dancing beams of light made it impossible to figure out what it was, and he sped by it without a second thought, hoping that it’d at least deflect some of the bullets whizzing past his head. 

He didn’t even realize that Virdon was suddenly no longer at his side until the grinding of metal on metal and a rhythmic clanking sound suddenly appeared beside him. Burke turned his head, and his eyes widened at the rolling shadow slowly creeping up at him. In the erratic light of the search lamps, he could make out something swinging up and down.

Then Virdon’s voice rang out to him:  _ “Hop on over, Bugs! We’re gonna outrun them easily with this thing!” _

Burke doubted that, seeing how he was now keeping pace with what seemed to be a handcar, but jumped on it regardless. 

“We can... take turns... pushing that thing...” Virdon gasped over the clanking sounds, “keep it running... for longer than they can... keep up...” He was standing at the front end of the thing, with his back to the tunnel ahead, furiously pumping the lever. Burke grabbed the handles of the arm on his side before it knocked him off the car, and added his own strength to the crank. 

The car didn’t seem to accelerate that much in his estimation, and it definitely didn’t outrun the speed of the bullets still howling down the tunnel. Something slammed across his right shoulder, but in his adrenaline-fuelled frenzy, it just registered as if someone had punched him from behind. No pain, not yet.

No nurse Blue this time to fend off an infection. Not that it mattered anymore. A muffled grunt from the other side of the pump lever’s pivot told him that Virdon might’ve been hit, too. But he kept on pumping, so maybe it was just a graze. Not that it mattered anymore. 

Burke slid into a kind of physical trance, the repetitive action of pumping the lever arm up and down, up and down wiping all conscious thought from his mind. Despite the intense exertion, he stayed curiously detached — the burning air in his throat and chest, the tickling of sweat down his back and the warmer sensation of blood running from the wound in his shoulder, even the dull but slowly intensifying pain from the injury: Everything was far away, unreal, disconnected. 

At some point, he realized that the darkness had returned, and that the only sounds were his and Virdon’s labored breaths and the metallic grinding and clanking of the handcar. He slipped deeper into his dream then, no longer disturbed by any immediate outside danger. If he could just put his mind to sleep, snuff out his awareness like a candle, there’d be nothing left for Them to find him. 

Down and down and down into the darkness. Down the deep road to the heart of the Earth, where nothing ever saw the sky again. Where time hovered endlessly, an eternal suspension before the next breath, the next heartbeat. 

He let go.

* * *

Virdon found himself lured into a kind of trance by the darkness and monotony of their labor as well, but contrary to Burke, his mind was racing, wondering where that track was leading, calculating how far their pursuers had fallen behind by now and whether they’d be trailing them, hoping to catch up, or whether they’d be content to set up a sentry at the entrance to wait for their eventual return — something Virdon was determined to avoid at all costs, unless the tunnel really ended in a cul-de-sac.

He had reason to cautiously hope that this was not the case; although it was near impossible to estimate time or distances in this utter darkness, it seemed to him that they had already traveled far longer down the tunnel than a storage vault would’ve necessitated. It seemed to go on and on to an unknown destination — maybe a trade outpost?

Virdon remembered his and Burke’s wary surprise at discovering that the colonists used exactly the same weapons as the apes, and their speculation that they had to either trade with them, or raid simian outposts. Considering what he had seen today, Virdon doubted that any of these skinless creatures would dare to come to the surface for a raid, so despite their outspoken disdain for the ‘beasts of the upper abode’, trade was the only logical — disconcerting — option left. The only question was whether they were buying or selling the guns to the apes; they certainly had the technology, up on Level Two, to produce them. And the guns had always seemed strangely sophisticated to Virdon, compared to the technological level of the apes.

Whichever scenario it was, it meant that this tunnel might very well lead them directly back to the apes, but right now Virdon almost welcomed the sight of a surly chimp guard. If it  _ didn’t _ lead them back to the apes, well... they’d cross that bridge whenever they’d reach it. Virdon’s imagination failed to come up with plausible theories about the tunnel’s destination, not least because he couldn’t begin to understand these creatures’ intentions. He had thought they were human. After today’s revelations, he wasn’t so sure about that anymore.

The memory of them tearing off their faces — elaborate masks, no doubt, so well made that he hadn’t even realized what they were when he had been up close, stealing a uniform — upset him; filled him with a mixture of visceral disgust and horror that was almost unbearable. The utter darkness around him didn’t provide any distraction, except for the fireworks of geometric patterns dancing before his eyes as his retinas fired aimlessly for want of external input. But pumping the lever of the handcar demanded all his breath, so he didn’t have any to spare for a conversation with Burke about... other things. Anything but their recent experiences here. About the things these creatures had done to his friend—

“Pete! You still with me?”

For a moment, Virdon was gripped by a terrible panic that Burke had fallen off the handcar without him realizing it — hit by a stray bullet, dropped unconscious from the drug, even jumped off by his own volition to follow the siren call he claimed to be hearing in his mind. Virdon could be pumping the lever alone from his end without noticing any difference. 

“Pete!”

”... wha’...?”

The mumbled response didn’t quell Virdon’s fears, but at least assured him that Burke was still on the platform. Virdon decided to only add his muscle power to every other move of the lever, and to use the tiny breaks for keeping Burke’s attention on the here and now.

“How you feeling?”

Another long pause. Then, ”... dunno.”

Sensory deprivation, and the repetitive action of pumping the lever had deepened Burke’s trance again. There was no way of knowing how long that drug would circulate in his system before it was broken down into metabolites that  _ didn’t  _ scramble his brain anymore. 

Virdon tried again. “What do you think where this leads to? An ape outpost?”

This time, Burke was silent for so long that Virdon was tempted to stop the car and physically check on him. When his friend spoke at last, his voice had a dreamy, far-away quality that made Virdon’s hair stand on end.

“Nah... it leads away from the apes. Goes deeper into the desert... under it... it’s meant to go all the way... all the way to the other side...”

Right. Maybe directing Burke’s attention to the here and now wasn’t the best strategy under the circumstances. Virdon grasped for a more casual conversation topic. “What, uh... what do you miss the most from home? From old Earth...  _ our _ Earth?” 

So much for small talk — this was a dangerous question; one that triggered memories of Chris’ face when he was three years old, of Sally’s laughter, of Christmas trees, of his own father’s voice booming from the living room cheering on his team...

Virdon cleared his throat. Apparently he’d have to carry on the conversation alone for a while before Burke would hopefully chime in. “Never thought I’d miss it, but, uhm... unclogging the toilet. I think I miss it because it’d mean I’d  _ have  _ a toilet. It’s the pinnacle of civilization, no wonder people hoarded toilet paper in times of crisis...”

Burke didn’t laugh, as he had hoped, but after a long moment, he finally spoke up. “I miss flying.” His voice still sounded soft and forlorn, so unlike his usual forceful, sarcastic sniping. “Not even flying a space ship... or a jet... a glider would be okay... or a hot air balloon...”

“A hot air balloon?” Virdon couldn’t suppress a chuckle. To his relief, Burke joined in.

“Yeah, okay, maybe not a ballon, but... jus’... being up there, y’know? Close to the sky. Always liked it best up there.”

“It’s a great feeling,” Virdon agreed. “But I promised Sally I’d retire after this mission. So if I flew, it wouldn’t be a space ship anymore.”

Another long pause. Then, “Sorry I scared Jones into cranking up his machine...”

“Don’t. He’d have done it anyway, just not over Callisto, and who knows where we would’ve ended up then? And it won’t matter anymore once this is all behind us,” Virdon said with more conviction than he felt. “Anything in particular you want to do once you’re back?”

There was another pause, in which Burke’s unspoken  _ you know as well as I that won’t happen _ rang loud and clear in Virdon’s ears. 

“I’d find Sondra, tell her I’m sorry for not calling sooner,” Burke said at last.

Virdon snorted. “Hate to tell you, but I think she’ll have moved on by then.”

Burke coughed softly. “Yeah, think so, too. Can’t blame her, really.”

The conversation died down again after that, and the silence beneath the grinding sound of the handcar felt as impenetrable as the utter darkness around them.

“Sandwiches,” Burke said all of a sudden. “I’d really like to have a huge barbecue pork sandwich with this hot sauce an’—“

“Barbecues! We always had them in our backyard...”

“Yeah, I know, you had one before lift-off. Never understood why you invited Jones...”

“Because he was part of the crew, Pete.”

“Jus’ seeing him there spoiled my beer. Oh yeah, beer — there was this craft brewery in Tampa, best beer of my life.”

Virdon’s stomach had rumbled at the memory of barbecues, and he desperately tried to distract himself by focusing on non-dietary items from his homeworld. “Watching the playoffs with Nate and my dad...”

Burke picked up the subject with slowly growing enthusiasm. “Going to car races, the vintage ones where the cars run on gasoline. I jus’ love the sound of those machines, man! And the smell of burned rubber.” He laughed, then sighed. “Yeah, not gonna smell that again.”

Something clamped down in Virdon’s gut, a grim determination not to let this disastrous expedition dictate their future. There was still the White City of Laisa’s tales, with no indication that its ‘magicians’ were monsters. Not every hidden colony of surivors could be a death cult.  _ You will eat your sandwich and smell gasoline and burned rubber, Pete, you will. We  _ will _ get home. We just mustn’t lose faith. _

“Church,” he said after a long pause. “I miss church service.”

Burke snorted a laugh. “That’s quite a jump from going to the races.”

“Maybe it was your reverent tone that made me think of it,” Virdon teased. 

“Ha! The only thing I  _ revere _ is—“

The handcar hit something with such force that he was thrown off the platform. He landed on his back, and for a moment, the darkness around him was filled with twinkling stars. He heard Burke groan with pain; then he was confused for a second whether it hadn’t been himself who had groaned.

“Al, you alright?” Gravel crunched as Burke jumped off and came around the handcar to his side.

With a groan (this time, it was definitely him), Virdon sat up and rubbed the back of his skull. “Hit my head, but I’m still in one piece, I think.” 

“There must’ve been something on the tracks. Of course you can’t see a thing in this fucking darkness...”

Some minutes of groping around in the dark revealed that there hadn’t been anything lying across the rails. The tracks simply ended, and beyond them was nothing but naked rock.

Despite the chill temperature, Virdon felt sweat break out all over his body. They had raced down this tunnel for miles, just to hit a wall of rock at its end. They were exhausted, thirsty... and trapped.

“Guess it’s time you give me that knife, Al.”

Burke’s voice was flat with despair; it had lost all its drugged, dreamy softness, but that didn’t mean that he was of sound mind again. 

“You don’t give up that easily, Pete.” Virdon inched further down the corridor, arms outstretched before him; he needed to feel that wall with his own hands. That end of their journey.

“There’s no way back — no way I’m going back there, Al. I know your ideology doesn’t allow you to—“

“My  _ ideology?” _

”... to end your life on your own terms,” Burke continued, ignoring Virdon’s indignance, “but there are things worse’n death, and believe me, these mutants are one of them. I’m not going back, there’s no way going forward, a knife jus’ makes it quicker an’ less painful than starving.”

His hands were still only feeling thin air. Judging by the slight echo to Burke’s voice, Virdon estimated that he had already walked another twenty yards. He turned and walked back to where Burke was still trying to goad him into becoming an accessory to murder.

“If this was truly a dead end, I’d drag you back, and we’d find another way out,” he growled. “So stop arguing with me. But it looks as if there’s still a way forward — I couldn’t find a wall.”

“So it’s just further down the road.” Burke sounded tired now. Defeated. Virdon fought down the urge to grab him by the shoulders and shake some faith into him. “Doesn’t change anything.”

“You don’t know that!” Virdon crossed his wrists behind his back to keep himself from shaking Burke. “Maybe they just haven’t finished laying the tracks yet! Maybe it’s still under construction! The tunnel doesn’t end here, and there’s nothing to indicate that it will end at a wall of rock. If you don’t want to go back, you’ll  _ keep going _ , you understand me?”

There was a long stretch of silence. Finally, he heard Burke heave a long-suffering sigh. “Fine, whatever,” he muttered. “Won’t make a difference anyway.”

Virdon put a hand on his shoulder, both as reassurance and to make sure Burke wouldn’t just trail off in the utter darkness and find a nook to sit down and die. “It will make a difference, Pete. You  _ will _ see the sky again.”

Burke just laughed, a mirthless chuckle, but at Virdon’s prompt, he started walking, and they moved further into the darkness, an eternity of rock between them and the sky.

* * *

When Burke had first learned karate in his youth, his teacher had insisted that he learn to meditate. Young Pete had scoffed at that order at first — sitting on your ass watching your breath had seemed to be not just pointless, but utterly lame. 

He had soon learned better. Focusing on your breath was easy; focusing on  _ nothing but _ your breath was impossible for more than two seconds. He had never really mastered the discipline, though once his ambition was stirred, he had fought hard for every additional second of focus; but once he had joined the Air Force, he completely forgot about it.

Stumbling through utter blackness beneath a million tons of rock, Burke wished he hadn’t lapsed in his meditation practice. Without any sensory input save for the chilly air and the gnawing pain in his shoulder, and the warmth of Virdon’s hand on his other shoulder, his mind assaulted him with memories he’d rather not contemplate. From the latest horror of the past hours, his mind jumped to the sight of Asar breaking that kid’s neck, and then to himself in the pit, forced to kill another young boy. 

And then back to Urko’s prison. And the moment Al was shot. The moment he was staring in utter terror and disbelief at the dead screen in the  _ Icarus’ _ engine control room. Like a monkey angling from branch to branch, his mind flitted from one harrowing memory to the next. 

He had to focus on something else but his past if he didn’t want to go crazy the next minute.

“Say there’s really an exit at the end of this tunnel,” Burke broke the silence. “What then? We’ll be out in the desert with nothing but your knife and the clothes on our back. We’ll still be screwed.”

There was a moment of silence, in which Burke’s mind nudged him with the memory of Epah’s face.

“Once we’re out there, the first thing we’ll look for is water and shelter.” Epah’s face dimmed, and was replaced by a memory of the barren landscape of the Appalachians they had left behind. “It might seem unlikely to you, but there is water in the desert, and I can find it. I will.”

“An’ then what?”

“We go north, like we had planned from the beginning. Get out of the hot zone, reach some sort of civilization again... preferably the human variety. Seek help.”

It sounded like a good plan, under the circumstances. But the circumstances were what they were because their previous plan had been smashed to pieces by... by him. If he hadn’t fought that damn dragon with hs bare hands... if he hadn’t shot the damn ape patrol... Burke heaved a sigh.  _ No plan survives first contact with me. _

Virdon misunderstood his sigh. “We’ll make, it Pete. Once we’re out there, we have options — well, more options than we have down here.”

“You mean the choice between going crazy or blind first?” Burke rubbed his eyes. In his own case, it was a close race — the luminous sheets stirring gently in his field of vision had become stronger, to the point where they had replaced the darkness almost completely. “I think my retinas are exploding... there’s this green glow everywhere...”

“You see it, too?” 

“Well, we’ve both been down here for hours now, why would your retinas be better than mine?” Burke asked, slightly peeved.

The hand on his shoulder vanished, and a shadow moved into the weak glow before him. Burke stopped, bewildered.

“I don’t think our eyes are playing tricks on us,” the shadow said in Virdon’s voice. “The light is real. I think it’s coming from the walls.”

The shadow vanished, and after a moment, Burke heard scraping noises. “Y’know, the walls started to glow once at that party, too, but that was because we’d taken some shrooms...”

“This stuff seems to be a fungus, too — a bioluminescent fungus,” Virdon’s voice came back. “But I’d advice against eating it.”

More scraping noises followed. Then he heard Virdon’s footsteps coming towards him again. “They stop glowing as soon as I remove them from the wall,” Virdon said. “I had hoped we could make them into some sort of torch, in case they don’t cover the walls until the exit.”

“What makes you think there’ll  _ be _ an exit?” Burke said wearily. “We could already be in some natural cave system... one that leads nowhere.”

“Oh ye of little faith.” Virdon grabbed his shoulder and pushed him forwards. “But what I can tell you with absolute certainty is that there’s water here somewhere; fungi don’t grow in the desert.”

Reluctantly, Burke began to set one foot in front of the other again. He was too tired to argue with Virdon, but he couldn’t help but mutter, “maybe it jus’ catches the humidity from the air.”

“And where would that humidity come from this far down? It must evaporate from some body of water, otherwise that fungus would’ve covered the tunnel wall right from the beginning.”

Burke uttered some inarticulate sound as the equivalent of a shrug, because he was too exhausted to point out that rehydrating would only prolong their dying later on. He wasn’t up to fighting Virdon’s stubbornness even when he was fit; it was easier to just go along with it now until his commander had figured it out for himself.

His commander... maybe that was the problem. They had left the era of ANSA’s existence over a year ago, and despite Virdon’s insistence, there was no chance in hell they’d ever return to that time. Even Virdon had slowly come around to that realization — he had talked of sending a signal to ANSA to warn them of what was coming, hoping that they’d prevent it from happening, but he no longer mentioned them coming to get them out. 

So they were stranded here for good: in a world where neither ANSA nor any other human organization existed that would give their former ranks any meaning. But he still deferred to Virdon when push came to shove, and Virdon still succeeded in pulling rank on him. Old habits refusing to die, Burke guessed; but between his own tendency to throw himself into fights, and Virdon’s obsession with contacting ANSA, those old habits could well kill him instead. Maybe his own recklessness would kill him some day, too... but at least he’d die on his own terms, not for another man’s futile dream of home.

The thought drained him of a tension he hadn’t noticed before, but it didn’t bring him relief, only a deep sadness. Maybe he had bought into that pipe dream, too, against all better knowledge.

“Look!”

Burke looked up, blinking against the eerie greenish light. It seemed to be stronger at one point, outlining a darker patch in its midst. 

“Can you feel it?” Virdon said excitedly. “I bet there’s water in that tunnel. The air coming from there is much cooler!”

Now he could feel it too, and although Burke was loathe to leave their tunnel, even if it didn’t lead anywhere, he followed Virdon down the crack in the wall. The light in there grew stronger the farther down they followed the path, strong enough that his eyes were able to show him his surroundings instead of the whirling geometric patterns of randomly firing nerves, and Burke saw that this tunnel was probably entirely natural — it was narrow, with uneven floor and walls that had never seen a pickax. The glowing fungus carpeted everything, and Burke’s skin itched at the thought of accidentally touching it. Everything down here felt contaminated, intent on creeping under his skin and fucking with his DNA. He reached out and yanked at Virdon’s shirt. “Al, stop.”

“What’s wrong?”

“We’re not gonna drink this shit. If that stuff is so eager for water, I bet it’s  _ in  _ the water, too. An’ we have no idea what it’s gonna do to us. I don’t want it to grow in my guts, an’ go moldy from the inside.” The mere thought made him nauseous. Maybe it was in the air, too, and the spores had already settled in their lungs... “Let’s go back an’ find that exit of yours.”

Virdon hesitated for a moment. Then he sighed. “Ah... good point. You’re right, it’s too risky.”

Relieved, Burke turned and hurried back to the main tunnel. Hell, he was thirsty, too, but some things were really worse than death, ways of dying included.

The glowing fungi thinned out and vanished after some time, and they were back to stumbling through utter darkness again, with nothing to distract Burke from the itching in the back of his parched throat, the pain in his shoulders, or his own monkey mind that tried to convince him that he had, in fact, inhaled some deadly spores that were the source of the tickling sensation in his throat. To his relief, the connection to the Swarm seemed to have broken, at least — he couldn’t feel them in his mind anymore. 

Exhaustion silenced his mind after a while, and he fell into a state of dull awareness without thought, the light of his consciousness dimmed down to a tiny flicker, just enough to keep his feet moving.

And then he stopped. 

There was no strength left in his legs anymore; no will to move them. Burke leaned against the cool rock, and slowly slid down until his butt touched the ground. 

Sitting down was heaven. He’d never get up again. He’d just fall asleep here. Nobody would find him, no ape would ever come down here, not even Urko. 

“Pete?” Virdon’s voice sounded rough, followed by a dry cough. “What’s wrong? Do you need a break?”

A break. It was too funny, and Burke couldn’t resist a chuckle, even if the chuckle made the itch worse, and he broke into a cough, too. “A break? Yeah, I need a break.” 

He had to wait until his throat had calmed down again. Beside him, Virdon was silent. “I need to sleep. You, too, Al. I’m tired of this shit, I wanna die with dignity, y’know?” He coughed again. “You remember what that is, dignity? We had it once, but I can’t remember anymore what it feels like.”

“I want to die with dignity, too, Pete.” Virdon’s voice was calm, but there was an undertone of despair in it that Burke hadn’t noticed before. “But that means I have to go down  _ fighting _ . I can’t just give up, and neither can you! I won’t let you — you’re still under my command, still my responsibility, and as long as there’s a breath left in us, I won’t leave you behind.”

Burke laughed again, incredulous. “You really think— No, Al, I’m not under your command anymore. You know what? I resign. Fuck ANSA. Now lemme die in peace!”

There was a long, long silence.

“Alright,” Virdon said, very quietly. “I accept your resignation, Major. You’re no longer under my command.”

The words felt like a punch to the gut, unexpectedly. He was no longer Major Burke of ANSA, pilot of the  _ Icarus.  _ He was just Pete Burke again, and nothing else. Virdon had released him, and he was unmoored, shivering.

 _ Doesn’t matter,  _ Burke reminded himself.  _ I’m dying anyway. _

“I’m asking you as your friend, Pete,” Virdon continued. “Don’t give up. Come with me. We’ll find the way back outside, and you’ll have the sky again.”

And just as unexpectedly, Burke felt his eyes well up.  _ Shouldn’t have mentioned the sky, dammit. _ He was grateful for the darkness. “This fucking tunnel will just end at a wall!”

“If it does, I’ll die there, at that wall, not a mile before it because I gave up prematurely,” Virdon insisted. “And I’d prefer not to die there all alone.” 

There was a shuffling noise, and to his horror, Burke suspected that Virdon was now kneeling. “I beg you, friend,” Virdon said, and Burke felt embarrassed at the intensity in his voice, “have a little faith in me, and  _ get up!” _

An iron grip closed around his bicep, and with those last words, Burke was yanked to his feet. “I’ve reconsidered,” Virdon said. He hadn’t been kneeling at all. “I’ll accept your resignation once we’re outside. Now move, Major.” He gave him a push that made Burke stumble down the corridor a few steps before he found his balance again.

He had walked maybe twenty feet when he ran smack into the wall. Virdon caught up with him immediately, and swore, incredulous. “Looks as if you hadn’t given up a mile before it, Pete... I’m sorry.”

He had been ready to die in that tunnel not a minute before, but now Burke felt a surge of rage welling up that made him want to pummel that fucking wall, the wall that denied him the sky. He struck out, smacking the wall—

... and recoiled in pain. “Ow! Shit! Fuck! God _dammit!!”_ He heard Virdon suck in his breath and hold it, probably forcing himself to keep a remark about not using the Lord’s name in vain to himself. Burke didn’t care, too focused on nursing his bruised knuckles. He had struck metal.

“Al, I hit a  _ rung!” _

”... what.”

“A rung! There are rungs in the fucking wall! It’s a ladder, and it goes up, an’ maybe out, an’ I’m too fucking  _ tired _ to climb a fucking ladder, Al,  _ fuck, _ my hand...”

He continued to swear a blue streak, which relieved the pain in his hand somewhat, as well as a lot of accumulated tension, until Virdon remarked, “When you’ve finally run out of fucks, can we start climbing?”

Burke paused; then he started laughing. He laughed at Virdon’s joke, at his own idiocy — who seriously thought they could punch a wall and  _ win? — _ , at the fact that he had been ready to lay down and die a mere twenty yards from the exit, from relief that there  _ was  _ an exit; he laughed for no reason at all, and because he couldn’t stop, not even when the laughter triggered a body-wrecking cough. He laughed tears, and maybe he cried for real in between, too.

Virdon had laughed with him in the beginning, but at some point, he had started patting his back and rubbing it in turn, and when Burke finally ran out of breath and tears, and even his sighs and coughs had died down, Virdon still let his hand rest on his shoulder, as if to make sure he wouldn’t suddenly dissolve into a puddle on the ground. 

Burke sniffled, pulled up snot, and gingerly flexed the fingers of his bruised hand. No broken bones, thank god. Luck was with the stupid today. “’m good,” he said hoarsely. “Let’s get the hell outta here.”

“By all means. I’ll be right behind you.”

Before long, Burke’s arms started to hurt, especially the one where the guard’s bullet had grazed his shoulder. He couldn’t lift that arm above his head a short while later, and used it to keep his balance on the rungs as he reached with his good arm for the next one. His legs were shaking; they had to stop and rest every fifty rungs, then every twenty rungs. Every ten rungs. Burke tried to keep count, but he was too thirsty, to exhausted, and maybe still too drugged, and forgot about it at rung two hundred and eighty-four. Or maybe eighty-six. 

At some point, when he started wavering and losing his grip on the rung, Virdon climbed up to him, shielding him with his body from falling away from the ladder and down into the abyss. From then on, they stepped on the same rung, reached for the same rung above them; if Virdon noticed that he was favoring one arm, he didn’t say anything. If Virdon was favoring his lame leg, Burke didn’t say anything, either.

The air around them was still pitch-black; no light at the end of the tunnel. 

No sky. 

And then there was no rung above him. Only another wall.

Above Burke’s head was a lid. And the lid didn’t budge.

“Y’know,” Burke said wearily, resting his cheek against the cool metal of the rung, ”at least back there, I could lie down to die. Now I have to climb down the whole damn ladder for that.” He said it without heat; he didn’t have the energy for it anymore.

Virdon reached past him and fumbled around in the darkness above his head. “You only have to climb down a rung or two,” he said after a moment.

Burke lifted his head from the rung, suspicion shooting a spark of energy through him. “What for?”

“There’s an old-fashioned padlock keeping the lid closed from the inside. And I have a bullet or two left in my gun.”

“You’ll shoot your own head off with the ricochet!”

“Well, at least  _ I _ won’t have to climb down then.”

“Fuck you,” Burke muttered, but stepped down two rungs. Virdon was right — if they didn’t disable the lock, they were as good as dead anyway.

The shot thundered around him, and Burke instinctively hugged the rung closer, trying to melt into the wall. The second shot followed immediately afterwards, and the tube filled with gunsmoke.

... and then a gust of cold air swept past him, blowing away the smoke. Burke raised his head, not daring to hope.

Above him, Virdon’s legs vanished upwards and over the round edge of the rim, and Burke stared up into a sky full of stars.

Then Virdon’s head appeared again. “What are you waiting for? Get out and enjoy the view!” He reached down to grab Burke’s wrist, and pulled him up and over the rim. 

A cold night wind greeted him, tearing at his tunic and making him shiver. Burke straightened and sucked in a lungful of air, then another one, until he felt light-headed and not entirely real. He looked around him, still disbelieving.

They were standing on a rocky plateau, at a much higher elevation than when they had entered the ruins above the underground city. The moon wasn’t visible, so he couldn’t make out much of the landscape around them, except that it was still dry and barren, but Burke’s attention was captivated entirely by the sky above him.

Without the moon outshining the weaker lights, and without mankind’s cities adding their artificial glow, even the faintest stars were visible. The sky was  _ sparkling,  _ the Milky Way a majestic river of light. Burke stared and stared, drinking in the sight, filling himself up with its infinity, pushing out all the tight, oppressive darkness of the deep caverns in the bowels of the Earth. If he had been a religious man, he would’ve fallen to his knees and prayed.

Instead he muttered, “I was serious down there. About my resignation.”

A sideways glance revealed that Virdon was staring up at the sky, too. Without turning his head, he murmured, ”I know.”

“You don’t get to pull rank on me anymore now.”

“I know.”

“You don’t get to tell me what to do.”

Now Virdon did turn his head to look at him. “Don’t fool yourself, Pete. Someone has to save you from yourself. I’ll still tell you what to do — as your friend. Nothing you can do against it.”

For a moment, Burke’s contrariness flared up again. But they’d still die tomorrow, lost in the desert without water or equipment. It didn’t matter anymore. 

Burke smiled and looked up at the sky again. 


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Considering how 2020 went down, I'm aware that readers may not want to read anything plague-related. Unfortunately, part of the canon backstory involves the 'Simian Flu'. I'll put up chapter warnings when this will become an issue, but this chapter does _not_ deal with any pandemic-related topics. So read away!

** 2090 **

The room wasn’t more than a tiny cubicle, tucked away at the end of a scarcely-used corridor in the basement of the physics institute — the most out-of-the-way place Helen had been able to find and rig to the  _ Hermes _ comm system. She had sneaked Gina in, deposited her in front of a desk with nothing on it but a mic, told her to wait for the red light flashing at the console  _ but don’t touch anything, okay, I’ve set it all up and I can’t come down here to correct the frequencies if you change them  _ and had vanished again. The steel door behind her had closed silently, and that silence had engulfed Gina like a giant cotton ball. Whatever they had done to the room, it sucked every sound from the air.

The conversation between the  _ Daedalus _ and its mastermind Hasslein, and the subsequent last words between the crew members and their families were meant to take up no more than fifteen minutes, because that was the window of time when the ship would be within range of the  _ Hermes _ array. Helen had promised to split her time slot with her, but Gina had no doubts that Hasslein was hogging most of the  _ Daedalus’  _ alloted time, leaving the families with no more than a minute or two for their personal conversations.

One minute to say goodbye to your loved ones, while you were forcing down your fear of never seeing them again. Gina’s hands were balled into fists, her fingers icy. The silence in the room was suffocating, making her feel as if she was buried deep under the earth, or floating through outer space herself. 

Isolated. Utterly alone.

The red light at the console before her began to glow, like a tiny demonic eye in the dusk of the room, and Gina jerked forward, heart racing. “Chris? Are you there?”

Silence, and for a moment she was convinced that Helen’s rigging had failed, there was no connection...

”... Gina? Is that you?”

“Yes!” She felt dizzy with relief, as if all the blood was rushing from her head and into her chest when she heard him laugh, fluttering beneath her collarbones.

“How did you get in? What did the professor say? They only allow family members...”

“Helen helped me,” Gina said quickly, determined not to allow herself to feel furious at the mention of Hasslein. “She split her time with me.”

“Ah. Okay.” If he was disappointed that his sister hadn’t split her time with their mother, his voice didn’t betray anything. Gina knew from Helen that Mrs. Virdon had buried herself in her work more and more over the last years. It could’ve been due to the alarming developments in the Pacific, but Gina suspected — and Helen had agreed — that Chris’ mother was shielding herself against the unavoidable tragedy of losing another Virdon to Hasslein’s obsession. 

Maybe she should’ve done the same... but there was a reason for her insistence to talk to him that had nothing to do with her desperate longing for him.

“I’m sorry, I was just surprised,” Chris was saying. “I thought you were back in San Diego, studying with that ape lady.”

“I’m just... I’m visiting with my parents,” Gina lied. ”I knew this was the last time the  _ Daedalus  _ would be in contact with Earth before the jump, and I didn’t want to miss the chance to talk to you...”

The truth was that once the dust had settled in the wake of the Animal Liberation Front’s liberation of professor Cho’s apes, Gina had found it prudent to finish her studies back home, but this wasn’t something you could explain to your maybe-boyfriend in space in less than a minute. 

“Well, I guess the apes will do fine without you for a few days,” Chris joked. “It’s so good to hear your voice, Gina.”

“I miss you.” She hadn’t wanted to say it, because it tore open all that carefully stashed-away pain, but it was out before she realized it; predictably, she was fighting tears all of a sudden.

“I miss you, too,” Chris said, and it even sounded genuine. “But I’ll be back in no time” — he laughed — “literally, and then we’ll be together again. All of us.”

She didn’t want to argue with him. Not now, she had no idea how much time they had left; the red light could wink out without any warning, and she  _ had  _ to tell him, before— “Chris, I’m pregnant.”

Silence. Gina checked, but the light was still glowing silently in the corner. “Chris?”

”... yes. Yeah, I’m... still here, Gina,  _ what?  _ I mean, how...?”

“Well, I hope you did have sex ed at some point, or was that also left out in favor of more physics lessons?” And there it was again, the familiar exasperation whenever they talked more than two sentences with each other. Gina rubbed her temples. This was not how she had wanted this conversation to go.

“Ahahah... no, erm... of course I know how babies are made. I’m sorry, I’m... this came totally out of left field, Gina, half an hour ago I was still calibrating the White-Juday oscillators...” 

There was a long pause that Gina refused to fill, although her heart was racing again as she stared at the red light, willing it to keep glowing.

“Are you... uhm... do you want to keep it?”

“What do you want?”

“I’d like you to keep it,” and of course he would, and Gina didn’t know if that delighted or enraged her. It was always mixed up like this when it came to Chris. “What do  _ you _ want?”

“I’ll keep it.”

She heard him breathe out. “Mom will be so happy.”

“Yes.” She hadn’t told them, neither Helen nor Mrs. Virdon, and she had no intention to fill them in on the news any time soon. She’d return to the West Coast next semester, when everyone would’ve hopefully forgotten all about the ape incident at the lab, and stay there, and raise her child in peace, far away from Hasslein. If Chris wanted to have a part in his child’s life after his return  _ (he won’t return, you know it),  _ he’d have to relocate or fuck the hell off.

“Is it a boy or a girl?” Chris sounded excited now, and Gina felt her rage melt away.

“I don’t know, I didn’t let them tell me. I want to be surprised.”

“Ah, okay, okay. Uhm... can I suggest a name?”

“If it’s a boy, it’s not gonna be ‘Alan’, Chris,” Gina said firmly. Maybe the West Coast wasn’t far enough; maybe she’d have to move to Australia. 

“Well, we have this tradition of naming a boy after both of his grandfathers, and a girl after her grandmothers...,” Chris argued. “I’m Christopher James Virdon, after my maternal and paternal grandfathers. What’s your dad’s name?”

“Antonio,” Gina murmured. ”And I don’t think ‘Alan Antonio’ is a name I’d want to inflict on my son. Or ‘Sally Simone’ on my daughter.”

_ “Our  _ son or daughter,” Chris corrected her. “Well, whatever name you choose, I’m sure it’ll be great. Too bad you leave me guessing for the rest of the journey — this’ll haunt me now!” He laughed. 

Gina leaned forward. ”You know what’s haunting  _ me?  _ The thought of you out there, in this damn ship with Hasslein’s cursed machine, ready to throw yourself into the abyss on nothing more than that madman’s word that the wormhole  _ won’t  _ swallow you forever like it did with the  _ Icarus,  _ the thought of all those families down here — not just  _ your  _ mom and sister, or me, but the families of the other crew members, too, and how Hasslein will bring the same heartbreak and disaster to them that he has brought to us, and to Mrs. Jones, and to Major Burke’s family, if he has a family, I don’t even know, but Chris,  _ how could you?  _ How could you do this to your mom,  _ how could you do this to me?” _

Maybe she had screamed the last words, because her throat ached as if she had. Gina swallowed and waited for Chris’ angry response, but it never came. When she glanced at the console, the red light was gone; she had no idea if he’d even heard her rant, if it had broken off mid-stream, if he was yelling into his mic somewhere in space now... maybe he was too angry now to focus on his calibrations, maybe he’d make a mistake because of her...

Her sobs were muted and choked, sucked from the air and into the walls. She had no idea what they had done to the room to make it feel like a coffin.


End file.
